Grace for Tomorrow

Did you know God's most frequent command is "Do not be afraid?" My besetting sin is fear. I started reading Running Scared by Ed Welch around the time of Esther's surgery. What a blessing it has been. It is filled with truths from God's Word that have been so convicting. One thought I've been tempted with since Isaac has been born is "If I only knew what his future holds, when he will come home, I'd have a goal line to press towards, and it would make things easier." I read these quotes the other day that was a challenge to that thinking:

"Anxiety asks for more information so it can be prepared for the coming apocalypse. It also asks for more information so it can manage the world apart from God. Worry and anxiety think that more information will help. The truth, of course, is that it won't. In fact, if you knew what tomorrow would bring you would probably opt to stay in bed. But put that aside for the moment. The deeper issue is that we still think God is a little stingy. He keeps secrets and plays games with us. He withholds. Can we fully trust someone who does such things?.....Before the questions are even formed, God responds....His response begins by simply showing us the sheer breadth and depth of Scripture. The Bible is God's revelation of himself."

"Are you worried about the future? You are looking at tomorrow as if it was a final exam and you haven't yet taken the class. Of course you panic at the thought. But you haven't considered that you will go through the class before you have to take the final. You will be given all the grace you need when you need it."

"When we try to imagine grace in some future situations, we might still be resting in ourselves. We want specific confirmation that there will be grace, and we want to calm ourselves not by trusting in the Gracious One but in seeing the future."