Day 23 Bible Reading

Genesis 45 & 48, Matthew 16, Psalm 14

Matthew 16: 24-25 (ESV)

“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

I love these verses from Matthew 16. For me it means if you give your life over to Jesus and become his follower, you will find your true life. But to become a Jesus follower it does sometimes feels like you are carrying a very heavy cross. I have had to confess to Jesus my sins, all the things I feel guilty about having done or thought, and my worries. This is a new thing for me to ask God in prayer to take my worries. I had no idea I had so many worries I was carrying in my heart and soul. When I wrote them down, I was so shocked. I was worried about so many things. Sometimes the worries were trivial, sometimes they were legitimate to what was currently going on in my life, and still others seemed so silly to me when I wrote them down. I was crying the whole time as I made a list of my worries. But afterwards I felt free, like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My worries were my cross and they were so heavy like a physical wooden cross. I don’t know why I didn’t want Jesus to know my worries and to ask his help to share them. I think part of me was ashamed to have so many worries. I have this belief that I am a child of God, and it feels so shameful on some level to still have so many fears and worries about everything in my life. I was hiding it from myself and from Christ, like it was my problem and not God’s problem because I’m an adult and I can take care of myself and I don’t need God meddling in my personal business. It seems so silly now, but that’s what I felt and still feel. I’m going to keep writing down my worries and asking God to help me with them, because I don’t know if I exhausted the list of things I’m worried about in life. I’m going to keep losing the worry part of my life, in hopes of finding a newer life in Christ.