Icu4dzs said:
I take a more simple approach. If you feel you are able to handle a problem, you don't have to worry about one happening. The simpler you live, the easier it is to feel "prepared" and thus you don't care about catastrophe or whatever all that much.
One of our posters made a statement his grandmother taught, "if you pray, don't worry. if you want to worry, don't bother to pray!"
The corollary to this is "G*d helps those who help themselves". I tend to stick with that approach and recommend it to everyone. Either way, self-confidence is the key. Self-sufficiency is the key to self-confidence for most of us; which is why we are here, right?
Not a sermon, just a thought.
Tim sends
//BT//
Actually, what that means is that God provides in hours of need and the confidence in that, the faith in that, is sufficient for me and for those who regularly pray to God for their needs, worries, etc. Benjamin Franklin, I believe, was the one who coined the phrase that God helps those who helps themselves, but it isn't entirely true. God helps those who call out to Him in love and faith. He sees the sparrow when it falls, how much more does He care and plan for me?
God wants us to depend on Him and not our own devises, plans or workings. This doesn't mean one can just sit on their nether regions and wait for blessings to flow in regards to food and life preparation. God also indicates that" if you don't work, you don't eat." "Work with your hands and wait upon the Lord." "Consider the ant and the grasshopper".
Many passages in the Scriptures show that someone who works, prepares and does not stay idle live more easily...it also says "sufficient to the day is the evil therein"~meaning these dooms day predictions, worrying and stressing...it's all worthless. Each day brings it's own troubles and we aren't really to worry about the future, God has it under control.
It also says that the lilies of the field neither toil nor sow but they have garments more glorious than a king because the Lord sees to their needs...so more working, more worry, more stress over having enough, doing enough, storing enough are not to take up our minds that can better be spent on God's work and plan. Actually, it states in many places that God gives plenty to some merely so they can share with those who have nothing...if I accumulate at all it is with this in mind and not my own welfare. I believe the general consensus in regards to the Bible is, if you have food, shelter and clothing it is all you really need~ anything extra is to be shared with those who have none.
Not quite the "I've got mine and all you zombies can go fly a kite!" mentality that I've seen often on here and not real popular with the secular crowd...but it is what I live by. So far, God has seen me through many bad days and times that all my own efforts and strivings didn't change.
As for why we are here...well, I have my own thoughts on that as well.
Now, that's
my sermon for the day! I'm ready for the veggies and the rotten eggs to be thrown....
Didn't even know anything had changed in the economy or the world except some stock market crapola that doesn't apply to the poor folk. I generally just keep putting along in my groove and don't pay such things any mind....
