Hi friends!

It has been two weeks since I released my list of goals, and I wanted to report on my progress on goal #3: spending twenty minutes in quiet time.

After reading my friend Mait’s blog about his conviction to start memorizing scripture, I was inspired to spend some of my quiet time the past few weeks memorizing a passage. I decided to memorize Matthew 6:25-34, which talks about worry. I didn’t know just how challenged I would be by that passage.

I am a worrier by nature and seem to always be worrying about something. But all the uncertainty that comes from moving to a new place, searching for a job and looking for a new community brought on a new level of worrying. To be honest, I have never felt so out of control in my life. There were so many questions and so many things that only God could handle.

I picked this passage because I knew that this time of transition would be tough and I needed something to cling to. While it provided comfort and encouragement, it also contains a command not to worry. This is the part I struggle with the most as it feels impossible for me to do. But as I studied and memorized this scripture, I felt God asking me one question: Do you trust me? If I do, then I must choose not to worry and instead place my trust in him. This has been a theme throughout my life, and one I’m sure that God will continue to work on in my heart until I finally get it.

Here is the passage I memorized:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall I eat?’ or “What shall I drink?’ or ‘What shall I wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

Even though not all my problems are solved and not all my questions are answered, memorizing this passage encourages me to have faith that God is bigger than all my worries and fears. If I truly believe that, then I have no reason to worry. And neither do you!