Why worry?

Worry. We all do it. I do it way to much. I worry about what to wear each day. I worry about what to eat. I worry about if I am doing my homework correctly. I worry about tests. I worry about if I am doing the right thing with my life. I worry about if I will ever meet the right boy and get married. I worry about how I will die. As you can see, I worry about a lot of things; things I probably shouldn't be worrying about anyway. But the one thought that I had been worrying about most recently is who in the world I was going to room with next year. My roommate from this year, who I love to death, isn't coming back next year, so that wasn't an option. I probably would have roomed with her next year just because we got along so great this year, but obvioulsy that isn't part of God's plan for either one of us. And it must be because He has something greater planned for the both of us, and knowing that makes everything better. But once I found out she wasn't coming back, I, of course, worried. Who in the world was I was going to room with? I had options, but they weren't for sure. Many people had told me I should just do random again. That idea didn't sound good to me just because there was no way that random person could beat my roommate this year, who was random. I just wasn't sure. At first, I had not, I'll admit, been praying about what to do. I thought, I have a lot of time, I'll think about it later. Then last week, the topic of who I was going to room with came up again. For some reason, when I went to bed that night, I thought, you know what maybe this time I should pray about it. So the next few nights I prayed that God would show me either what to do about rooming or show me a person in my life to room with.
Sometimes it surely does amaze me how God works.
I started praying Thursday night right. I know God answers prayers whether with yes, no, or keep waiting, but I didn't know He could answer one as fast as He did answer mine. Sunday night one worry got wiped off my long lists of worry. I got this text from a friend, Laura, who goes to Bethel and has become one of my closest friends and my "church buddy" so to say, that said, "Hey, do you know what you are going to do about rooming/housing next year?" I think my heart skipped a beat. I didn't want to get my hopes up any, so I just responded with, "No I have no idea what I am going to do!" Later that night she responded with, (not the exact words, but close) "Well my roommate from this year is rooming with someone else next year and I was thinking since we are both athletes (she golfs) that it would be cool if we roomed together next year if you want too." God. is. good. At the time of that text, I just happened to be near my family and it was so hard to explain to them what just happened because I was freaking out! God answered my prayer! To respond, all I said was "Laura Glass!! You just made my day! I had been praying about this so much because I didn't know what to do! So if you really want to I would love to room with you!" She then responded with saying that she had been praying about it too.
Wow, God never does cease to amaze me. Right now I am speechless in how else to describe the feeling I had toward Him after all this happened. AHH!! I just want to jump up and down and scream to the whole world that God really can answer prayers in the craziest ways. That God really is the most amazing man on the face of this earth. Gosh, I can't help but smiling. Needless to say, I couldn't sleep that night.
Sometimes it leaves me in awe of how God teaches me things. Of course as soon as this happened, I thought "Blog Post worthy", so I started flipping through my Bible looking for verses having to do with this because I knew there had to be verses talking about prayers. I came to one of my underline verses in Phillippians. It's Philippians 4:6 its says, "Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Why hadn't I been praying about this all the time?!? I shouldn't of been anxious about the idea of not knowing what to do, I should have been praying about it all along. God knows whats on my heart even if I don't pray about it, but He still wants us to hear our requests straight from us. The version of my Bible is ESV, but in my Bible I wrote down what the NLT version says. It says, "Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done." That is what I should have been doing all along telling God what I needed. Why did it take me so long to realize that? But just as I was writing this, the second part really hit me more than it did the first time I read it. 'Thank Him for all He has done." I was so excited that night, I should have been thanking Him as soon as my prayer was answered, but instead I waited till I prayed before I went to sleep. So many times I do that. Why is it that I think I have to wait to thank Him for anything He does through the course of the day until I lay down at night? So from now on, I'll stop and thank Him each time He does something great for me as soon as He does it. I think thats all He wants.
His teaching doesn't stop there.
The basketball team just finished up doing a Bible study called The Christian Atheist. (I would recommend it.) Its main idea is about how someone can believe in God but don't fully believe in all He can do. Sort of like just going through the motions of being a Christian but not fully believing in Him. On Monday, the day after the excitement of finding a roommate occured, I sat down to read the three chapters for the week. Who would of guessed that one of the chapters was on worry. The title of the chapter was When you believe in God but still worry all the time. Holy Smokes! God obviously was trying to tell me something. Its is amazing to think that the idea of me reading that chapter at that exact moment didn't just happen by luck, it happened because God planned it all out way before that day even happened. Yea, He is just that good.
As I was reading the chapter, I was thinking, why in the world was I worrying about something that was going to all work out becasue it was in God's hands. One of the biggest points I learned by reading this is that worry is a sin. Even though there is no commandment that says "Thou shalt not worry", it is still a sin.  It is a sin because its like saying we don't trust what God already has planned for us. While we may know that He has a plan for each of us (Jeremiah 29:11), we tend to worry about the small things in life. But I think sometimes, myself included, forget that even those small things, God still has a plan for them. He has every single detail of our lifes put together! Every. Single. ONE. Why, why, why do we worry then? Here is a quote that explains it: "Worry, in essence, is the sin of distrusting the promises and the power of God. It's choosing to dwell on, to think about the worse case scenario. It's faith in the bad things rather than faith in God." Enough said, worry is having faith in the things we don't want to happen rather than just putting our faith in God who puts all good things together. So in my sitution I was worried about getting a roommate that partied, or didn't have anything in common with me, or who doesn't follow Christ, or who isn't into sports and competition, etc. Instead I should have put my worry aside and put my faith in God that He would place me with the right roommate. And let me tell you, He sure did put me with the right one. My roommate now is the total opposite of what I was scared of, and Laura, is the same way. None of those from my "worry list" apply to her either. I know God placed me with the right person to have as a roommate and I already can't wait for next year. :)
Another quote that stuck out to me was this, "If you do catch yourself worrying even after you've done what was wise, remember that God is bigger than our problems, and that He wants us to hand them over to Him. Worrying then becomes a signal alerting us it's time to pray." I never thought of it like this before. Whenever you suddenly think of something you are worrying about, you should take it as a sign to pray. God obviously put that thought into your head for a reason, so why not stop and pray about it right then and there. I wish I would have known this before. I should have been praying about a roommate every time that the idea of not knowing what to do occured to me. I know now I'll start doing that more often. But most importantly from that quote, God is bigger than all our problems. Every. Single. One. No matter how big or how small they are, He is bigger. All we can do about them is pray about them. He's got it all under control, we don't need to worry.
So next time you worry, don't. Pray about it instead and realize God is bigger than those worries.
I don't ever think I have been as happy knowing that God really can be bigger than my worries and actually will answer prayers that two people were praying. It just amazes me how good God really is. I know He is good all the time, but sometimes I just love it when He is really really good and does more than we deseve Him to do. But you know what, that's just God for you.
He takes away our worries.
He loves us more than life.
He answers prayers.
Here is one last quote for you.
"I don't know what tommorow holds, but I know who holds tommorow."
God holds my tomorrow. He holds your tomorrow. I don't think we need to worry about.
It's all in His hands. <3
:)