November 13, 2020 (Friday)
Today is Friday the 13th, a day thought by many to bring bad luck. Do you believe that? Are you superstitious?
I hope not, because that would mean you are afraid of many things like broken mirrors, black cats, forgetting your good luck charm, etc. A word we need to describe superstition is “fear.” Of course, some also believe in good luck, which seems to come around less often than bad.
Let me be coy and suggest a definition for “superstitious:” “Living in unreasonable fear of hypothetical conditions.” OK, not a good definition, but what’s your definition? The etymology for superstitious is a combination of ancient words meaning “standing above the state of things,” or, in other words “living in fear of something other than the obvious facts.”
Let me be blunt: there is no room in the Christian’s life for superstition of any kind in any place at any time. We live on the higher ground of faith in God.
Because our lives are in God’s hands, we need not fear. We can trust the Lord every moment of every day. One of my very favorite scripture passages is found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:4-9 NLT).