John 21:22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

This is a very important Scripture. We are so extremely prone to compare ourselves to others, either favorably or unfavorably. We worry about what God is doing or is going to do with someone else to the point that we miss what He wants to do with us! God uses us to bless others, but our responsibility is for personal obedience, not for what happens with the other person. We have such trouble with that. My father, in the letter he wrote to the family just before the heart surgery from which he didn’t wake up on this earth, said that he desired God’s perfect will for each of us, which would fit in perfectly with His perfect will for everyone else. If we are worried that someone else seems to be getting more “perks” than we are, we will be less than faithful in our own duties, and we will certainly miss out on the peace and joy that God intends for us. We need to trust, on the deepest level, that God’s plans for us are to prosper and not harm us, to give us hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11) When we really grasp that, we won’t be so anxious about God’s plans for anyone else.

I think it’s been a long time since I’ve suffered from much “ministry envy,” but I do get tied in knots over whether my spiritual children are going to miss what God has for them. I’m to pray for them and encourage them, certainly, doing all I can to pass on to them what God has given me, but what they do with it is ultimately their own responsibility. I will do them more good by being focused on my own obedience than by being anxious over theirs. Trusting God for and with His plans cuts both ways. I am to be God’s agent in tearing down the works of the enemy (1 John 3:8) and in communicating His grace and love, but I’ve got to remember that it is His power and wisdom that accomplish those things, not mine. If I am rightly connected and related to Him, then His will will be done in and through me. I have no reason to be anxious about anything!

Father, thank You for all that You have been doing in these days. Thank You for what we have seen with our physical eyes and for what we have seen with the eyes of our hearts. I pray that these last three days the YWAM team will be here may fulfill every one of Your plans for this time. May we not be anxious, but rather fully obedient, resting, relaxing, and rejoicing as we do Your will, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!