Most of us are. We parents have it especially tough. My daughters are at that age when they are starting to drive. It seems like just yesterday I was teaching them to walk, and now I'm putting them behind a steering wheel. It's a scary thought. I'm thinking of making a special bumper sticker for Jenna's car that reads, "How am I driving? 1-800-CALL-DAD."

What do we do with these worries? Take your anxieties to the cross -- literally. Next time you're worried about your health or house or finances or flights, take a mental trip up the hill. Spend a few moments looking again at the pieces of passion.

Run your thumb over the tip of the spear. Balance a spike in the palm of your hand. Read the wooden sign written in your own language. And as you do, touch the velvet dirt, moist with the blood of God.

Blood He bled for you.

The spear He took for you.

The nails He felt for you.

The sign He left for you.

He did all of this for you. Knowing this, knowing all He did for you there, don't you think He'll look out for you here?

Or as Paul wrote, "God did not keep back His own Son, but He gave Him for us. If God did this, won't He freely give us everything else?" (Rom. 8:32).

Do yourself a favor; take your anxious moments to the cross. Leave them there with your bad moments, your mad moments and your anxious moments. And may I suggest one more? Your final moment.

Barring the return of Christ first, you and I will have one. A final moment. A final breath. A final widening of the eyes and beating of the heart. In a split second you'll leave what you know and enter what you don't.

That's what bothers us. Death is the great unknown. We're always a bit skittish about the unknown.

Sara certainly was. Denalyn and I thought it was a great idea. We would kidnap the girls from school and take them on a weekend trip. We made reservations at a hotel and cleared the trip with their teachers but kept it a secret from our girls. When we showed up at Sara's fourth grade classroom on Friday afternoon, we thought she'd be thrilled. She wasn't. She was afraid. She didn't want to leave!

As we left, I assured her nothing was wrong. We had come to take her to a fun place. Didn't work. By the time we got to the car, she was crying. She was confused. She didn't like the interruption.

Nor do we. God promises to come at an unexpected hour and take us from the gray world we know to a golden world we don't. But since we don't, we aren't sure we want to go. We even get upset at the thought of His coming.

For that reason God wants us to do what Sara finally did -- trust her father. "Don't let your hearts be troubled," he urged. "I will come back and take you to be with Me so that you may be where I am" (John 14:1, 3).

By the way, in a short time Sara relaxed and enjoyed the trip. In fact, she didn't want to come back. You won't want to either.

Troubled about your final moments? Leave them at the foot of the cross.

Leave them there with your bad moments, mad moments and anxious moments.

About this time someone is thinking, "You know, Max, if I leave all those moments at the cross, I won't have any moments left but good ones."

Well, what do you know? I guess you won't.

Taken from He Chose The Nails by Max Lucado, (c) 2000, Word Publishing, Nashville, TN. All rights reserved.