Week Eighteen - Weights, Wants, and Woes

This past week, we were in a Mission Conference in northern Illinois. The gracious lady we stayed with invited us to join her for morning devotions.

As she read the devotional, three words popped out at me - weights, wants, and woes. The writer, Tim Green, was focusing on Colossians 3:10 and the benefits of the new man, saying, "Spiritually, when an individual new-born Christian is directed or informed that they have become a new creature in Christ Jesus and the weights, wants, and woes of the past have or are dissipating and disappearing, one recognizes the 'new man' they have become."

How many of us fail to understand the change and power available to us as new creatures in Christ? No longer can the weights, wants, and woes of this life have dominion over us unless we allow them. I found myself meditating on this fact for the rest of the day. 

And even singing, "Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be weary and long for heaven and home? When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."

Then, as the Lord often does, He brought me face-to-face with Scripture, deepening my thoughts and understanding.

I was reading Psalm 13. This short chapter is full of woe for the first four verses, then full of renewed hope for the final two. Where the Psalmist initially cries out, posing questions and calling out to God in despair, his resolve returns to truth in the considered actions of 'I will' and 'I shall'.

Psalm 13:5-6a reads, "But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord."

How important it is for us to recognize that though the weights, wants, and woes of life try to trample us down, we can return in full faith to a God who sees and hears; a God who lifts us up.

How can we stay down, when He is so near?

Trust, rejoicing, and singing are David's remedies for his woeful questions. And, he closes with a beautiful answer of why, "because He hath dealt bountifully with me" ( vs 6).

So today, if life feels heavy, if the weights, wants, and woes of this world have you bogged down, grab hold of the I will and I shall and choose to trust, rejoice, and sing. Count those blessings and you will no doubt find that God has also dealt bountifully with you, and no weight, want, or woe can outstrip His grace and love.