‘Good Morning, This is God’
Story by Joe Pisani
My friend George has a saying taped near the front door, which he reads whenever he goes out.
It says, “Good morning! This is God. I will be handling all your problems today. I will not need your help, so relax and have a great day! (Enjoy your weekend as well.)”
Somewhat appropriately, it’s above the keypad for the alarm system.
I often wonder whether God will handle ALL my problems, not to mention yours and everyone else’s. Or if the real problem is my lack of total trust.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to relax and not to have to white-knuckle your way through the day? To sit back and let everything happen, convicted in a childlike trust that God is not only handling the crises but also taking care of the details, sort of like a personal assistant, or more accurately a loving, protective parent.
I wish I had that kind of trust during the decade I worked in Manhattan and seemed to go from crisis to crisis and back again. I suppose all of us need to get out of the driver’s seat and let God do the driving when life is spinning out of control for any of a thousand reasons: A medical test doesn’t turn out the way we hoped. A recalcitrant child persists in self-destructive behavior. The company downsizes and you lose your job. A family member or friend dies. There’s an infidelity or a betrayal. Will God handle them all and help us get through them?
On my bedroom door, there’s a small plaque, which says, “Before you go to bed, give your troubles to God. He will be up all night anyway.” (Another reminder to trust.) If that’s true — and I certainly hope it is — then why am I up all night, worrying about my kids, my grandkids, my health, my wife’s health and every other conceivable thing that could go wrong. Sometimes I even think of new things to worry about when I get tired of worrying about the old things.
A priest once told me that six months from now I won’t remember what I’m distraught about today. That may be true, but it doesn’t make today any easier.
My father was a recovering alcoholic who had problems (and who created a lot of problems before he got sober). Whenever he saw my world spinning out of control, he’d say, “Let go and let God.” Great advice. Unfortunately, I usually don’t let go and let God until I’m hanging by my fingertips off the side of cliff.
In recovery, he also tried to live by the 12 Steps, and the 11th step is pretty specific about the need to trust God: “We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
The most important thing we can do, and perhaps one of the hardest, is to trust Jesus without hesitation or reservation. So as my New Year’s resolution, I’m making a renewed effort to trust more. My first step is to begin praying the Litany of Trust, which was written by a Sister of Life, and stresses the importance of living in the present, and the need to turn our will and our life to God. Get a copy and pray it every day. It says in part:
From the false security that I have what it takes, deliver me Jesus.
excerpt from Litany of Trust
From rebellion against childlike dependency on you, deliver me Jesus.
From anxiety about the future, deliver me, Jesus.
That you are continually holding me, sustaining me, loving me, Jesus I trust in you.
That not knowing what tomorrow brings is an invitation to lean on you, Jesus I trust in you.
That you are with me in my suffering, Jesus I trust in you.
That your plan is better than anything else, Jesus I trust in you.
That you will teach me to trust you, Jesus I trust in you.
I also got one of those “Good morning, this is God” plaques, which I gave to my wife for Christmas.
As George told me: “When I read the assurance from God that he will take care of our wants, needs and problems today, I am positive he has done that all my life. So I understand what it means when I see the words, ‘Good morning, this is God. I will be handling all your problems today, I will not need your help, so relax and have a great day.’”