Luke 12

March 26, 2008, 10:00 am; posted by
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Last week’s Bible study was on Luke 12. That passage is my favorite in the whole Bible, so I\’d been looking forward to it ever since I heard we were doing Luke. However, college ate my life and I had no time for the Bible study. But I will not be deterred! I want to share with everyone what that passage has meant to me these last few years.

My father died when I was seven, leaving my mom, my sister and me with Social Security checks to take care of us. We lived off of those for several years, but we always knew that when I turned 16, my mom\’s check would stop, and when my sister and I turned 18, our checks would stop. I turned 16 the same year my sister turned 18, and that year my mom lost her job. She didn\’t find another one until after that last check stopped coming.

I cannot describe the fear we faced every single day for those two years, both together and in our own worlds. I remember staying up nights, terrified that we would have to give away our animals and everything we owned, that we would have to leave our apartment and live in our van, that we would starve. I remember the November the electricity bill was somehow $400, and my mom forbade us to turn on the heat or use the oven, and constantly yelled at us for having too many lights on. I remember the Pop Tarts for both breakfast and lunch, and running out of milk or bread near the end of the month and having to wait until the 1st or 2nd to get more.

But most of all, I remember being so afraid, always so afraid.

I do not remember going hungry. I don\’t remember going thirsty, or without decent clothes. I don\’t remember ever going to sleep without a solid roof over my head. I was helpless with worry those two years, but at least once a week I read Luke 12:22-34, and later committed it to memory. Experience has impressed on me the passage\’s truth. I have never gone hungry for lack of food. I have never been without clothes or shelter. And though I worried, I\’m sure I did not add a single moment to my life by doing so.

God is faithful. It\’s taken me a couple of years to get to the point where I can finally write those words and actually believe them, but God is faithful nonetheless. Luke 12 didn\’t teach me that — I had to learn it myself — but the passage certainly reminds me of the truth whenever I forget.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ”˜Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?\’ ”


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