As of this October 2025, I will be fifty-six years old.
I have never been married. Not for lack of trying (see my testimony in past posts).
Family genetics are finally catching up to me with my health. No number of vitamins and minerals can completely deter some things.
Both of my part-time employment jobs are not making ends meet and are only stretching my faith not my bank account.
Yet right in the middle of all this is my Jesus. And the birds. Yes, Cory Asbury needs a new hobby. His song “Sparrows” from his To Love A Fool album, 2020, Bethel Music, has recently been on full repeat though being over four years old. In fact, K-LOVE Radio, Shine.fm, and even Air1 Radio Worship Now have all been playing songs about trusting and giving praise to our Heavenly Father.
As my Lord wants me to trust him in what he is working through me only makes me hurt. Yet our brother Paul spoke of getting closer to our Lord through pain and suffering. We can all look to Job, but Paul told us in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Ouch. That hurts just reading.
Paul was one of two Christians that lived through an earthquake while being in jail. Something I’ve never seen on any bucket list. He also survived a bite from a poisonous viper. Shipwrecks. Beatings. A stoning. Various dangers. Hunger, thirst, and the inability to get to sleep. And all for the joy of saying he became closer to our Lord via his weaknesses. Something unboastful worthy in today’s culture. His love for our Lord was greater than anything thrown at, over, against, under, or through him or in his general direction as it paled in comparison to what the Lord had for him. Or maybe what the Lord was able to do with him once he was at, over, against, under, or through.
Our Lord spoke of this himself in Matthew 6:25-26, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Anxiety only strips you of your faith and turns something uncertain into fear. Anxiety and depression are a part of my being, yet it doesn’t define my life. But recently as I’m cresting fifty-five and plodding towards sixty, being single with no offspring and living by myself only started to allow anxiety to creep into my thoughts.
This what-if along with my health, job, and then my bank account started a slow spiral in my brain. Thankfully my Heavenly Father knew this, and he started to have the local Christian radio stations play “Sparrows” and other songs that speak of trusting him. That’s how smart my Heavenly Father is. Through his word I could see how he was getting me to see how to trust him more. Through devotions, preaching, and worship music he was teaching me to keep my eyes on him. As to my health, I might be diabetic. It’s not the end of the world as the diabetic gene come from my mother’s side of the family. I’ve been running from it my whole life and the Lord seems now is possibily the time to acquire this malady.
Both part-time jobs have mostly drained my bank account. The money just doesn’t cover all the bills even though I have cut back on many things. In the end I simply gave my house and vehicle back to the Lord. Since he gave me both it’s really up to him if he wants me to keep them. Either way I know with him I will be fine. And though I live alone, I know I’m not. Being on the Lord’s side means he has an army of angels at his beck and call. As he teaches me to release my grip on things I think I need, it’s made me see that I am single more and more. Being single is different than being alone as it’s based on perspective. I’ve always wanted a wife to share life with. True I turned that dream in for my own desires, yet this dream has started to return.
All this to stay that my anxiety has been turned up when my Lord only wants me to dial it back while looking into his eyes when the anxiety is at eleven. It’s hard to do sometimes as I’ve said. Thankfully my depression hasn’t started its engine. Those sparrows are fed, clothed, and live within the confines of the Creator’s design with no care for tomorrow. If there is a tomorrow. I’ve seen them dancing in my bird bath outside my window. Frolicking in the heat of summer with no regard for who, or what, is watching them. Simply rejoicing that God has given them water to splash around in via one of his children who needs to be more like them at any given moment.
Grace and peace, James
*Cory Asbury, To Love A Fool, Bethel Music, 2020
*K-LOVE Radio and Air1 Radio Worship Now, K-LOVE Inc., 2000
*Shine.fm, Olivet Nazarene University, 2025
*Scripture reference from ESV, Crossway Publishing, 2001