What if?

I remember one of my former students, "Mayra."  She was a little, bitty sixth grade oboe player.  I taught her how to open her instrument case, put her fingers on the instrument and make "sounds".  The thing about Mayra was that she always had questions.  "What if I break a reed?  What if this part gets stuck?  What if I play a wrong note?"  and on and on.

I finally got to the point of telling her that if her question started with "what if" it probably wasn't worth asking.

 Don’t we "what if" ourselves into some pretty bad places?  "What if's" get us into trouble.  We wait for an answer to an application and wonder if we are even good enough to apply, we teach a class at church and wonder if we will know enough to make a difference, we even "what if" the decisions we make when parenting our children.  The list goes on and on.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes a good "what if" helps us to plan ahead and be prepared.  But these questions too often take away from what God knows….that we are His Beloved.

If we let the "what if's" take over, we will forget the promise in Ephesians 2:10:

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (NIV)

 God has never made a mistake.  You are here for a purpose.  If we "what if" ourselves into not moving forward and taking chances, we may never know what the good works are that He has in store for us.

 Today I Am Thankful For:

1.  Setting clothes out the night before

2.  My leopard print robe

3.  New reading glasses!

4.  Collapsible laundry baskets

5.  Old pillows