For years I played the what-if game. Maybe you're acquainted with this pastime. The rules are simple: Rule #1: You're only allowed to think of worst-case scenarios. Rule #2: You're never allowed to win this game. You can only lose. Rule #3: The more you play, the greater your losses.

Rather than worrying about work, schedules, and deadlines, I felt at peace with God. He was in control. The world at large would not crumble because I turned off my iPhone. This is how it's supposed to be. For the first time in who knows how long, I felt like myself. Fully alive. Fully present. And fully aware of God's goodness.

You've never really know what it's like to trust God to provide for you today, because you've got today provided for. And probably tomorrow too. Maybe even into next winter, with all the food socked away in that extra freezer in the garage.

Fear actually relies on faith...it's simply faith in the wrong things. Fear is placing you faith in "what ifs" rather in than in "God is

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.

Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn't suit the moment.

No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn't suit the moment.

Don't borrow trouble from round the bend,

Every decision you make in life has benefits and consequences. Sometimes you just have to go on faith, and even that comes at a price. It means you have to give up the idea that you're the one in charge of the universe.

You got to remember that when things are out of our hands, that doesn't mean they're not in God's.

No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step,

It's a lesson I'm trying to learn from him, this living squarely in the present. I am a planner and a worrier. I torment myself by mentally replaying my past mistakes, wishing I'd been smarter, wishing I'd been stronger, wishing I'd made different choices. I live too often in the realm of what if. I also expend time and mental energy continually trying to anticipate what sort of crouching tiger might be hiding around the next corner.