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Key Bible Verse: Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Matthew 6:27).
Bonus Reading:Matthew 6:25-34

I have fought many grass fires at night, and they never cease to amaze me. They seem so huge. It's easy to imagine them burning mile after mile of rangeland.

Several years ago a young ranch hand and I were battling a neighbor's blaze in thick sagebrush. Huge silver sages were exploding into pillars of fire, the flames reaching 15 feet into the air. The heat and smoke pushed us off the fire line and up a hill. Looking down, I thought that the whole country was on fire.

Returning the following afternoon, I was shocked by how small the burned area actually was.

Trials in the dark also seem bigger than they are. They seem insurmountable until light put them into the proper perspective.

I rise from where I'm squatting, shoulder my swatter, and walk downhill to where a tongue of flame is licking toward Crooked Creek. Tomorrow in the daylight the gullies that look like canyons of flame at midnight will just be little coulees carpeted with cold ash.

But tonight in the dark, it still must be stopped. I hear the roar of engines as the fire crews arrive.

—John L. Moore in Take the Reins

Where do you go when the fires are burning all around you?

Many of our fears are tissue-paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.

—Brendan Francis (writer)Adapted from: Take the Reins (Nelson, 1997).

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Prayer for the Week

You watch over me, Father. Help me let go of my desire for control and rest in Your goodness.

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