Living in hope

"What shall I render to the Lord for all His blessings to me?"

It's so easy for me to get caught up in the worries. What do I do after graduation? How do I find a job? What if I don't find a job and I end up living in a cardboard box with debt collectors coming after me for my student loans?

You probably have different worries, but I'll bet you have something. And they're probably real worries. I know mine are (well, maybe not the cardboard box). We can't just say, "Oh, that's silly," and stop worrying.

And yet, we get so wrapped up in our own concerns, so tangled in these webs of trouble, that we forget to look at God. We forget all the gifts he's given us. Some of them are small: a sunny day, a cup of tea, a good book. Some of them are bigger: an unexpected bonus, a new friendship.

I want to challenge all of us, myself included, to stop ourselves when we start to get all tangled up in that web. I want to challenge us to cut straight through it with the knowledge of God's love and care for each of us. I'm not saying that trusting in God will make in God will make it all perfect and easy and everything will magically fall into place. But what did St. Paul say about faith? It's the "substance of things hoped for." Let's try our best to live in that hope.