..the beads and p*sses of dumbo-no-more

psalm 23

it is time like this when i start to get panicky and lousy.
then it is time like this when i experience God saying that He is my shepherd.

I picked up my daily bread and read today's devotion passage...thinking that 'it's psalm 23 AGAIN!!!'
but now when i'm in school, i deliberately relook at today's devotions.

I collected my individual paper on runaway youth. i got one of the lowest, if not the lowest.
I had collected my individual paper on a movie review on Patch Adams. i got one of the lowest, if not the lowest.
I have band practices between my revision schedule which of course, is both therapeutic and stressful (if u get what i mean).

and God is telling me thru today's devotion:

"Although they were Christians, they were as worried as unbelievers about the common things of life. As she lovingly listened to them, an unusual idea came to her for a game they could play. It went like this:

Instead of saying, “I’m worried,” stop and say, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Then add, “So I’m worried to death!” The students laughed at the absurdity of the idea, but they all promised to play this new “peace-of-mind” game.

Later, Mary received a phone call from a young woman who had been paralyzed by worry over an exam she had been dreading to take. She said, “I must tell you how the game helped me trust God today. As I froze with worry, I remembered to say, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd . . . so I’m afraid I’ll fail!’ Suddenly I felt the strangest peace of mind. I laughed at myself, then I took the exam—and I passed!”

Saying “The Lord is my Shepherd, and I am worried to death” is more than a mind game to point out the absurdity of worry. God can use this contradiction to bring us to a fuller trust in Him"

I shall not worry.
grades should not take priority over the process of learning.

"The Lord is my Shepherd, and I am worried that i'll do poorly!"

Psalm 42:5 declares, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.” That must be why the psalmist said, “There they were, overwhelmed with dread, where there was nothing to dread” (Psalm 53:5).

In the midst of the changing circumstances of life, we have a choice. We can live in fear of all the uncertainties, or we can cling to the reality of God’s sustaining and intervening presence in our lives. When we find our strength in the fact that our Almighty God is on the throne and has everything under control, the defeating question marks are replaced with the confidence of His exclamation points, and that’s a welcome change!
-extracted from here

posted by WILLIAM @ 12:53 PM