A Lesson from a Lost Credit Card

A Lesson from a Lost Credit Card

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Pet. 5:7 NIV)

In Taste and See (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2005), John Piper shares about how he lost his MasterCard while on vacation in California. He had no idea where. Amazingly, however, he felt no worries, which was not natural for him because he admits to being a pessimist by nature. His typical response would have been to conclude someone had taken his card and charged it to the limit. He also would have gotten mad at himself or his family and taken out his frustration on everybody.

But this time he had no worries, anger, or frustration at all. He was completely happy throughout the whole vacation.

It wasn’t until he returned home that he found out what had happened to his card. When he checked the mail, he found that his friend, Daniel Fuller, had found the card when John dropped it in his car, and had sent it back to him.

What was the secret to John’s happiness? He never knew he had lost the card until he saw it in the envelope when he returned home to Minneapolis. If he had known the card was missing he would have been worried, frustrated, and irritable. But all that would have been pointless because in truth the card was safely being returned to him.

So many times, when trials come into our lives, we automatically begin to panic. But, as Piper says, “If we believe in the God of Romans 8:28, we will always remember that by the time we know a problem exists, God has already been working on it and his solution is on the way.”

This doesn’t mean God spares his people trouble, and far worse things happen to us sometimes than losing a credit card. But God knows how to turn losses and pains into good for us as we trust him. Consequently, we have no need to fret. Instead, we can simply cast all our anxieties on the Lord, trusting that at some point we will see the loving point of the adversity.