Confidence in Princes

Have you ever confided your problems to a friend, only to get the answer, “have you prayed about it as much as you’ve talked about it?”

Like all good advice, it can really irritate the recipient at first. Here I am, vulnerable and wounded, unloading my problems, and this joker tries to load them right back up and ship them off to Someone with a higher pay grade.

But again, like all good and irritating advice, it rings true if you sit and think about it.

Sure, venting is helpful. We all need that friend or family member who can listen to our problems. But if we ever start to think that person can solve them, it’s a good sign that we’re losing perspective.

Are you looking to the world for an answer? Are you looking in the mirror, expecting to find a solution to your problems? Are you expecting happiness, peace, contentment or justice to come from any place other than God?

“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in princes,” the Psalms tell us. Well, I’ve never put much confidence in princes. But when it comes to problems, I often find myself telling God to take a step back — “I’ve got this.”

It’s tough to pray about any problem as much as you talk about it. We want so badly to tackle the issue ourselves. But I’ll let you in on a secret: it doesn’t matter what the question is, we don’t have the answer. Take it to the One who does.

— Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS