We Need to Take Care of Ourselves before we can Take Care of Somebody Else—R Fritz
Our mental and physical well-being needs to be taken care of first before we can take care of anybody. I went to a conference this week where our health should come first where we work too hard and can burn out. Sometimes I carry too many problems of people, or my day is too full which over time gets to me. What we should do when we get too many problems from people is give the ones we cannot deal with to God to deal with. The problems or issues we can work with people to solve or answer we should deal with and if we cannot at some point, we then need to give them to God. We are put in positions that we cannot win ourselves, it could be a test from God. The issues seem more than we can do as we look at the issues that look impossible. Matthew 11:28-30 says “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” God is who cantake on anything we cannot as we have to come to him because God will give us rest as we need to take God’s yoke and learn about God.
We need to find out about God’s ways. There is a time when we need to do the things to get God’s attention. Why would we not let God be involved in what we are doing. That sounds like we do not know God of we think we can take care of our life by ourselves as we have always done. When we do things without God which is what we do when we do without getting the Holy Spirit involved. We can use our wisdom or listen to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we need to wait on God or God could be sending someone to help us but we decided to move ahead without God. Getting ahead of God is not good because God needs to go before us to get things ready. Deuteronomy 31:8 says “And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.” God does the preparations for what we are to do. God sees the things that can ensnare us or to trap us even knowing what Satan will throw at us. The path we are to take God is already ahead of us seeing the pitfalls trying to envision the fear that will come upon us and what we will need to overcome to keep walking down that path where God needs us to go to help other people. When God sends us on a mission, he makes sure we have what we need. It could be a skill he gives us; he could send somebody to help us as we will not fail. I can speak of what I just wrote because that is what God has done for me even when I thought I failed I did the part given to me by the Holy Spirit and was told and saw that I did not fail. When we do things on our own some people call it luck as if we have no plan, and we are blown by the wind in whatever direction the wind is blowing. The other part is if we are following God’s plan our stress level will be manageable.
That is why we must trust God because his plan was drawn up a long time before with the details put into action when they are needed. What many people do not understand is things happen to us that do not look like we were treated fair as God has used people to get us moved into the place where we are needed. This has happened many times for me and at first, I thought God was not with me but saw the things that needed to be done to get me where God needed me to be to deploy God’s plan. We do not know what God’s plans are because either our relationship with God through the Holy Spirit is not what it needs to be, or he knows what is best and does not want us to mess up what needs to be done. Sometimes God’s wisdom gets us to the expected end without drama. We need to see with our spiritual eyes to see what God is doing so we are not fighting what God is doing. Isaiah 41:10,13 says “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” We should not fear because our enemies will be dealt with as God has us covered. God is always with us as the Holy Spirit lives in us.
Fear enters our thoughts through Satan because fear is a lie. Fear tries to take thoughts of our future and bring it into the present. I had fear for fifty years of my life and defeated it with 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 which says (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” Verse five speaks of everything and every thought that puts itself against knowing God must come into captivity to obedience to Christ. Thoughts such as fear will leave immediately because the Word speaks the truth and must. These verses are how I defeated fear because I keep bringing them up when fear wants to show up. We are given these words to defeat anything when Satan wants to get control over our thoughts.
Our battles are spiritual, and God’s Word are how we defeat Satan. It took me time first to study fear and all the verses that talked about fear until the Holy Spirit gave me 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 and I will never forget what I saw happen. We are blessed; we need to keep asking questions giving us the wisdom to defeat what Satan has planned. Remember God’s love defeats evil. We cannot do everything ourselves, let’s get help from other people as well as things we cannot change to give them to the Holy Spirit to deal with. God Bless.
