Do Not Stress

Don’t you hate it when you miss bin day? (The day when the city council empties your own personal house bin once a week.)

Especially when you’ve had extra rubbish from family being over and the bin is full! Then also it won’t get emptied now for two weeks because it is on a two-week cycle. Uggh!!

This is where I become very inventive and really pedantic about using the recycling bin for all the recyclable items. And the extra strength to squash down items or use my art of packing really well.

Sometimes, though, this can backfire on you because you pack everything in so tightly that when the council trucks come and lift the bin upside down to empty it – nothing comes out! And the driver, thinking he has emptied your bin, moves the controls to place your bin back on the verge and drives on to the next bin to empty.

Uggh!!

I started to wonder why a bin being emptied is such a problem.

I think I was making it more of a problem for me.

Maybe for a week I would have to double bag the rubbish and store it in my garage till the bin can be emptied.

Maybe I could ring the council and see if they would return and pick up my rubbish?

But was it really that important to be so stressed by it?

There are way more important things to be stressed by but even those Jesus tried to teach us not to stress.

I say tried because we so often need reminding in our lives to not stress.

Paul reminded the Philippians:

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6 NRSV

Jesus taught us…

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Matthew 6:34 NRSV

Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7 NRSV

Now maybe unemployed bins do not stress you out but I’m sure you can bring to mind things that do?

Even the little things Jesus is interested in that we don’t stress about them.

So…. I’m still organising the bin to fit into it as much as possible but I’m not stressing about it. After my phone call to the council (and after prayer) I will then decide upon my next option or I’ll just calmly double bag everything and sit back and wait for the two weeks to come around.

Hope you have a nice day because mine is going to get better. I’ve decided.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What was the last thing that stressed you out but it didn’t need to? What did you do about it?

How often do you ask God to take care of all your worries?

What could you do to ask Him more?