Carla Hughey resides in Sullivans Island, SC and has been a part of Drawing Near to God for many years. She currently serves on the board of directors.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
In part 1, found here, I asked how our lives would change if we chose to seek God first instead of falling into worry. To do this, we take the situations in our lives that weigh us down, and daily offer them to the Lord as a sacrifice, giving Him ownership while we relinquish control. We can start with a prayer of surrender, like this one that I pray over my own children.
Lord, I give you my children today and thank you for trusting them into my care. They were yours before they were mine, and only you know their hearts and struggles. Forgive me for the times I have led them away from the path you have set for them. I ask you to come into their lives today, guide them, and bring them back to you in any place where they have fallen away. Teach them about the gift of repentance. Protect them, Father, in every way that I cannot. Give them peace, wisdom, and strength, and cover them with your love. Thank you for giving me the courage to release them into your loving hands. It’s in your sweet name, Lord Jesus, that I pray. Amen.
In praying this, I surrender them to their Heavenly Father, and, because He is faithful, I can rest in the fact that His hand is upon them. I never stop being their mom; however, I release the worry which prevents me from being the mom He created me to be. When anxiety wants to invade my mind again, and undoubtedly it will try, I remind myself that I have released them to the Lord. I may choose a scripture to speak over them as a way to quiet my heart. One of my favorite verses to pray over my children is Isaiah 54:13, which says, All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.
Sometimes we view worry as protection or as a way to achieve our desired outcome when it is more accurately a form of control. We mistakenly think that as long as we worry about a situation, we can master it. The truth is that if we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, all of that worry and anxiety will fall away. As we surrender more and more of our lives to Him, we see more of His hand at work. It all begins with trusting in Him and who He is.
We choose to go to Him before we worry as an intentional act of our will. Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. We seek Him first and then watch Him work it out as we hold on to the words of Ephesians 3:20. He is able to do immeasurably more than all that we can ask or imagine through His power that is at work within us.
His solution may not be what we expect or even what we want. But, regardless of the outcome, we hold tight to the truth that He is always good. He says in Isaiah 55:8-9, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” If we trust in the Lord and seek Him first, we will see the beauty of falling into His arms of grace. As David says in Psalm 27:13, I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
