Worry

‘Worry,’ as Corrie ten Boom wrote, ‘does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.’ No one goes through life without facing problems, battles and causes for worry.

From David’s own experience he is able to give this advice: ‘Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you’ (v.22a). Each year, I have written in the margins of my Bible the ‘cares’ that I have ‘cast upon the Lord’ in response to this verse. Most of them (though not quite all) have been more than resolved.

As you face the worries, battles and disappointments of life, don’t allow them to overwhelm you. Like David, turn to the Lord, cast your burdens on him and then say, ‘as for me, I trust in you (v.23b).

Light and dark

Martin Luther King said, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.’

To save

To save means to pull a person out of danger, to liberate, to open the doors of a prison, to heal, to make whole.

Trust and human nature

When people saw the miracles Jesus performed and what he was doing, many ‘believed in his name’ (John2:23). ‘But,’ John tells us, ‘Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need human testimony about them, for he knew what was in people’ (vv.24–25). It is surprising to read that Jesus did not immediately trust these people – especially when we read that love ‘always trusts’ (1 Corinthians 13:7). Jesus is realistic about human nature. We tend to look for the perfect spouse, perfect parents, perfect children, perfect friends and the perfect church. But these don’t exist. All of us are flawed human beings. Recognising this helps us to be more realistic and less disappointed and more forgiving in our relationships. We need the wisdom of Jesus in our dealings and in our relationships. We need to balance openness and loving trust with the wisdom and understanding of the human heart.

New temple

The temple was important because it was the symbolic dwelling place of God. It was where God and humanity met. These surprising words of Jesus show us that he himself is the new temple. He is the dwelling place of God on earth. Through Jesus, you are now called to be the home, the dwelling place of God. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).

No watered down life

This can also be seen as a picture of our own lives; Jesus turns the water of life without him into the wine of life with him. I thought that following Jesus would mean a life that was ‘watered down’. In fact, it is the very opposite. Jesus constantly surprises us by how he enriches our lives. In particular, we see here how he enriches weddings and, indeed, marriages. He can turn the water of an ordinary marriage into the wine of an enriched one.

Take possession

As Israel received the land as a gift from the Lord (Joshua 18:3), so you and I have received, in Jesus, every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). The question is, ‘How long will you wait before you begin to take possession’ of these gifts? (Joshua 18:3).