A story is told of a minister who was getting ready a few hours before he had to leave to attend worship one Sunday morning. He was the guest speaker at a nearby congregation, and had been preparing his lesson for weeks. To his dismay, shortly after getting dressed he discovered that he had misplaced his handwritten sermon notes! He looked everywhere, multiple times, in an effort to recover the lost material. He searched his office, checked in his car, and retraced his steps. He gradually progressed from conducting a random search, which consisted of looking any and everywhere to an organized search, which entailed carefully searching each room, one at a time, area by area. Exhausted, he reluctantly grabbed his keys, headed to his car, and made his way to the event at which he was expected.

When it was time for him to speak, he silently prayed and asked the Lord to give him something to say. He stood at the pulpit, and after opening his Bible to the passage that he had been requested to preach from, was delighted to discover that his notes were in his Bible! He had been driving himself mad attempting to locate something that he already had.

One of the most frustrating things to do is to search for something you already have (If you’ve ever lost your keys in your pocket, or your glasses on top of your head then you already know this). Here’s the point: As believers, the help that we need, we already have.

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13 NLT)

In Christ,
Jonathan Anderson