Now for a few yolk jokes:  Why can’t you tease an egg?  Answer:  because it can’t take a yolk.  What happens if you tell an egg joke?  Answer:  It cracks up.  How do you drop an egg six feet without it breaking?  Answer:  Drop it seven feet.  It won’t break for the first six.  Okay, okay, I know these are silly but I’ve got just one more.  What happens if you put a Tasmanian devil in a chicken coop?  Answer:  You get deviled eggs.

            Well, enough of that.  We’ve been writing about how to turn a matter over to God.  We’ve spent so much time on it only because we hear it suggested a lot.  We speak to someone about a problem we’re having and more often than not, because they really don’t know the answer they’ll say, “Just turn it over to the Lord.”  As we’ve said that is a lot easier said than done because we have a hard time really letting go.  “Doesn’t God have enough problems to contend with?  Why would He want mine?  It seems so petty compared to all the other things that are going on in the world.”  These are valid questions but they could also be suggestions from the devil to keep us from turning something over to the Lord. 

            We’ve said that before we can genuinely do this and especially if it involves other people (and a good number of our problems do) we’ve got to forgive.  Not just say “I forgive you,” but really deep down in our hearts forgive.  That involves letting go of feelings, hurts and misunderstandings.  It means that we work those things out and try to see where the other guy stands.  Often it means that we’ve just got to agree to disagree and go on with life without holding a grudge.  When we can do that then we’ve begun to forgive.  Forgiveness also involves forgiving ourselves.

            Then we must be willing to have faith and believe that God does want our problems.  We must know that He does have all the answers and that He wants to provide one for our situation.  And finally we’ve got to let it rest.  Stop talking about it every time we get into a conversation and believe that God can do it.

            When Deb and I were first married a niece that she was very fond of had leukemia.  It is a terrible disease in children and especially when we are close to the child it nearly hurts us as badly as it does them.  She went through bone marrow transplants and on and on.  It seemed that nearly every other weekend she was rushed to the hospital.  We prayed and cried out to God for her healing but it only seemed that she grew worse.

            One night after we had just lain down in bed Deb turned to me and said, “Jerry, I’ve tried and tried to believe God for the answer but it looks like she isn’t going to make it.  I’ve got to turn this over to the Lord.”  We prayed and she was in agony as she cried out to God.  After some time we finished and she said with a smile through her tears, “I believe that I’ve finally done it.  I’ve put her into God’s hands.  There’s nothing more that we can do.”  She had really done it.  She believed that God was going to do the best for her niece even if that meant taking her home to Heaven.

            You know what?  That very week her niece began improving.  From that moment on she got better and better.  She grew stronger and she began to put on weight.  After a year or so the doctors told her it was in remission.  Each annual checkup revealed that the leukemia was healed.  That little six year old girl grew up to be a woman and is yet today free from the dreaded disease. 

Now I can’t guarantee that it will happen this way in all cases. But I can guarantee that if we have really given a matter to God that we will have peace even through our sadness in knowing that He has answered in the best way in our situation.  When Deb developed cancer we prayed and prayed.  We did everything in our power to turn the matter over to God.  I believe that we did.  However she did not get better.  If fact on June 30, 2016 she passed away.  But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she received complete healing in Heaven.  God always knows best even when we think we do.

            I hope you aren’t sick of hearing these words from the Bible.  I know we’ve quoted them often in this series.  But they are so full of comfort, peace and rest.  Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30).  When you turn the matter over to the Lord and find His rest then the yoke really is on you.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.?  Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.