Can God Really Help You?

When you decide that you are going to go on a diet and lose weight, do you often feel a sense of dread? I found that as soon as I thought diet, I thought ‘Oh no, I’m not going to be able to eat what I want’ and I would immediately dread going on the diet.

Dread is really fear and worry under a different name, but it needs dealing with separately because it can have a very debilitating effect on our lives. Dread is related to something that hasn’t even happened yet. It often stops us moving forward and having victory in our lives. We often put off things that would actually make our lives better because we are in dread, for example not going to the dentist when we know we need a filling.

Dread comes upon you before you even start dieting and then it stays with you. You dread the next day, and the next and so on. Dread is one of the reasons that we often give up diets because all we can see in the future is food restriction, and we dread it. We dread it because we think it will be hard, but actually the feeling of dread is worse than the feeling of hunger!

Allowing your day to be spoiled dreading something that may or may not happen at a later date is a bit like paying interest on money that you haven’t even borrowed yet!

Dread steals your today. Your today is very important to God. God is a God of the present. Yesterday has already gone and tomorrow never comes. God wants us to exist in the moment, where he is. He wants us to be happy now.

Jesus taught against worrying about tomorrow in the Sermon on the Mount.

      “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34

Throughout my life I have dreaded so many things, yet all the things I have dreaded have come and gone and I have survived. The dread spoiled the day, far more than what I was dreading ever did.

Dread is another of the enemy’s tactics to destroy our peace and joy in the moment. He hates to see us enjoying life, so if it looks like we are, he will remind us of something coming up that might not be pleasant. He introduces dread. Have you ever had some of a holiday spoiled by dreading the end of it? How stupid is that when you stop to think about it?

God’s antidote to dread is rejoicing. Throughout the bible we are told to rejoice.

      “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Today is a gift from God. He wants us to enjoy it. He wants us to rejoice and be glad in it.

Today

As you go through the day sing to yourself:

      “This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Every time you sense dread sing or say the above.

Many people did not have today. Don’t spoil yours by worrying about tomorrow.