Monday, April 29, 2013

Fret Not

The first two words of Psalm 37 (depending on translation) are, "Fret not."  I have a friend who used to say to me, "In the words of Psalm 37, 'fret not,'" whenever I called in distress about something.  Fret not?  I am a champion fretter.  I can fret with the best of them.  If you can think of it, I can worry about it.  Especially at night, when it's dark, and I'm trying to go to sleep, and there is nothing left to distract me.  Especially then, I get lost in the cycle of obsessive thinking, worrying, fretting.  It's an unpleasant way to live.

Most of the time, much of what I'm worrying about isn't that important in the scheme of things.  All of the time, worrying won't do anything to change the outcome anyway.  But still, it's so hard to "let go and let God," as they say.  I feel like giving up my worry is irresponsible, that it means I don't care.  No matter that worrying doesn't help anything and generally just makes me unhappy.

So, imagine my surprise when I woke up from the following dream on Friday morning.  In the dream I was on a plane.  I have no idea where I was going.  It seemed that the flight had been very short and was maybe toward some place with palm trees, like Florida.  All of a sudden the plane started heading straight down toward the ground.  I was asked to move something off the seat behind me, and when I looked out the window I knew there was no way we could avoid a crash.  I also knew, in that moment, that I was about to die.  For just a moment, I started to panic.  And then, I let go.  There was absolutely nothing I could do to stop the crash, and I just said, "Okay God, I'm coming to you.  I hope you're ready for me."  And then I thought about all my loved ones and for a split second, I considered trying to call and tell them I loved them, but there was no time.  So I just asked God to take care of them.  Then I released all worry and concern and waited for the crash.  It was as free as I've ever felt, trusting that God had me and that all would be well even though I was about to die.

We didn't crash.  Somehow the pilot pulled out of it at the last minute, and we didn't crash.  I even heard the pilots laughing about what a close call it was.  The next thing I knew we were driving along a road and heading up a hill, and I looked around and said, "Did the plane just turn into an SUV?"  We were in a much smaller vehicle, driving along the road.  Some kind of hybrid vehicle.  And then I woke up.

I hope I can remember the feeling that I had on the plane when I truly let go and let God and released all my fretting and worry and fear.  I wonder if I can get to that state again, now that I know what it felt like.  I hope so, because it was a place of great freedom and trust.  Fret not.  How good it felt not to fret!  And what an amazing solution - a plane that turns into a car.  So much of my fretting is about how I'm going to find a solution to any given problem.  And the worry amps up when I can't see the solution.  Often, God finds a solution I never could have dreamed of.  Maybe not quite as dramatic as a plane turning into a car, but equally unexpected. 

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