Tag Archives: God’s care

Holy Thursday

“He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’  An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.”  (Luke 22:41-43, NIV)

God always answers the prayers of His children.

Sometimes, it is within the plan of God to deliver His child from peril or difficulty.  To be sure, it is a gift beyond words to be delivered from illness, injury, and death.  More times than we realize, God’s hand has delivered us from difficulties, danger, disease, and from death.

Yet, sometimes it is within the plan of God to deliver His child through the peril or the difficulty looming before us.  Even here — perhaps, particularly here — we are not alone in our suffering.  As God did for His only begotten Son in the crisis reflected in today’s scripture, God will also do for you when you allow Him to work through you for His purposes.  He will give you evidence of His presence; and He will strengthen you with His strength!

Fear not!  Whether “from” or “through,” God’s presence and God’s provision are always — always — ours when we confess: “Yet not my will, but Yours be done.”  – Luther

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“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers — the moon and the stars you set in place — what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?  (Psalm 8:3-4, NLT)

The span of the universe is not measured in miles, but in light-years.  The moon and the stars — witnesses to every generation of humanity since Adam — maintain their mysterious magnificence.

The psalmist marvels at the fact that the finite, flawed, foundering beings that we are, nevertheless occupy the thoughts of the Creator of the universe; and, somehow, warrant the condescension and the salvation of the Maker of the moon and the stars.

Do we, like the psalmist, marvel, too?  – Luther

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“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”  (1 Peter 5:7, NIV)

There was anxiety in Peter’s time.  War, disease, violence, political maneuvering, and the challenges of making a living created “Maalox moments” for everyone.

We also live in anxious times.

Then, as now, God invites you to “cast” (e. g. throw, discard, pitch) your anxieties on Him.  He does not desire that you be anxious — even for a moment.  Why?  Because He cares for you.  – Luther

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