Losing It
This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a wedding.
One of the groomsmen, whom I know quite well, was the brother of the bride. When I got to the church, I found him pacing up and down the parking lot, all tensed up and nervous. I went up to greet him, and he joked about how nervous he was, and yet it wasn't even his own wedding. He pulled out a cigarette and wandered off for a smoke, and I stood chatting with the other groomsmen. A minute later, he rejoined us, cigarette hanging limp and unlit from his mouth, as he patted his pockets nervously. He was the driver of the vehicle that was to transport the groomsmen, and he'd just lost the keys. That was a potential disaster! We told him to check his pockets, but he insisted he'd already done so several times. He started scouring the parking lot, checking behind bushes and beneath cars.
I left him searching and went into the church.
The bride arrived and the wedding happened without a hitch. After the wedding ceremony, I tracked my friend down and asked him whether he'd found the keys. He grinned and said he had. They'd been in his pocket all along, just behind his sunglasses case. But his nerves had made it hard for him to find them in the most obvious place.
Something similar happens between us and God when we let worry and anxiety take hold.
We end up thinking He's left us on our own. Yet God never leaves our side. It's just the worry and anxiety that make it hard for us to find Him in the most obvious place.