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Morning Devotional 101922 Would You Rather be Happy or Stressed?


Liz’s Morning Devotional: Scripture selected from Upper Room

October 19, 2022


Read Jeremiah 17:7-8


7 Happy are those who trust in the LORD, who rely on the LORD. 8 They will be like trees planted by the streams, whose roots reach down to the water. They won’t fear drought when it comes; their leaves will remain green. They won’t be stressed in times of drought or fail to bear fruit.


Good Morning, Happy are those who trust in the Lord!


Trust is an elusive thing for most humans. When we examine the basic trends that represent our lives, we find common themes within our physical existence. As babies, we are born into a world where we innately trust. As we grow into toddlers and children, our trust is typically still strong. To survive we must trust that those who care for us will provide us with our basic needs.


As we continue to grow, we start recognizing this desire to take over. We believe that we can do it ourselves. Teens live this precarious life where someone is there to fix the efforts at doing it yourself gone wrong. That is how we learn. When we finally become young adults, we are so excited that we can do it our own way with no one to tell us what to do in our own house. However, we quickly reach a problem that we yearn for someone to fix our problem for us.


As we bump along the potholes of our life through our adult lives, we learn to do this to avoid that and we mostly manage things. As we continue to age, we move back into this time where we must rely upon and trust others to take care of our needs. Unlike our birth where this trust is natural, now we fight giving control to someone else because we know “too much” to trust in others to care for us.


Our spiritual existence follows this same pattern in many ways. Our physical and spiritual needs often cross paths and we struggle with our need to trust and our need to control. God promises to take care of us and provide us with what we need. When we turn over our lives to God, we can live the happy, carefree life of our childhoods where we will never hunger or thirst.


That sounds like the obvious solution to our challenges, but we continually struggle with giving up that control. When things are good, we think, “I’ve got this!” When things go wrong, we cry to God for mercy and give our problems to God, and trust in God’s infinite strength and wisdom. When we come out on the other side of our problem, we are happy, but over time this belief that our success comes from our own efforts creeps in and we once again believe that we are in control and we can handle everything. But then . . . Round and round we go. Giving over control when we are struggling, but taking back control when we are “good.”


7 Happy are those who trust in the LORD, who rely on the LORD. 8 They will be like trees planted by the streams, whose roots reach down to the water. They won’t fear drought when it comes; their leaves will remain green. They won’t be stressed in times of drought or fail to bear fruit.

To live this life for which we yearn, we must trust and obey our God. Happy or Stressed: the choice is ours!


Gracious God, Thank You for loving us. Trust is so hard for us. We want to believe, but we continue to struggle. Help us. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen


Thought for the day: Trust God to care for you in good times and in bad times.



Trust and Obey, for there’s no other way! Pastor Liz


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