There Goes That Trust Word Again...

Two weeks ago I began to write this, but was too weak to finish...

I'm on the couch wrapped in a blanket and propped up with pillows.  Face pale, hair askew, sporting the same sweats I've worn the past three days.

I'm sicker than I've ever been before and the timing couldn't be worse.  

In one week my church will hold it's Spring outreach - an event I oversee.

In three weeks I need to be packed and my home "broom clean" for closing.

A double-whammy of bronchitis and pneumonia has rendered me weak and exhausted.

The simplest task sucks the life out of me.  

I'm not used to inactivity.   To handing over the reins.  To being weak.

I've talked a lot about trusting God. But I confess, right now, staring at everything that needs to be done, knowing that the clock is incessantly ticking toward a deadline, I really want to ask Him if He's checked His calendar lately...if He's aware of exactly what's going on down here.

Two weeks ago, I labored under the illusion that if I only had the strength, I would be in control of things.

Fast forward two weeks...

A recheck by the doctor and another chest x-ray confirm it.

I am on the mend. 

God took care of the Spring outreach.  He empowered my team, the site leaders, and over 100 volunteers, equipping them with what they needed to carry out the day. 

I was present, but there was no need for me to be hands on. 

The buyer contacted my real estate agent to say he'd be out of town the week we were to close - so would I mind pushing back the date a week? 

I have "regained" my lost time.

All the things I thought I had to do, God did or is in the process of doing.

There is one thing I have been doing however.  Seeing one central theme...one singular message, as I read my Bible and a variety of devotionals.

TRUST.

Oh that word!  Look at just some of the verses and reminders that have come my way in the past few days...

Psalm 56:3 "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you."

From The One Year Walk with God Devotional: "We are called to believe God with reckless abandon — not just believe that He is there and that He is involved with us somehow; but that He is actively, personally seeking our good and answering our prayers. We are to give up our own strategies and ambitions, to relinquish all "Plan Bs," to recklessly, irrevocably cast ourselves completely into His arms."

Psalm 9:10 "Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, have never abandoned anyone who searches for you."

From "Trust...a godly woman's adornment": Sometimes we stop believing that God will keep his promises; other times we attempt to reinterpret his promises to suit our plans and our schedule. If we stop trusting that God is able to act or to make clear how we are to act, then we are certain to seek our own solutions by laying hold of what lies right at hand. The bottom line is that we hate to wait. We crave a life we can control, and if we give into this craving, we are going to be tempted to wrest our circumstances away from God when he doesn't act as we think he should."

John 14:1 "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.

From "Jesus Calling":  I am a mighty God.  Nothing is too difficult for Me.  I have chosen to use weak ones like you to accomplish My purposes.  Your weakness is designed to open you up to My Power.  Therefore, do not fear your limitations or measure the day's demands against your strength.  What I require of you is to stay connected to Me, living in trusting dependence on My limitless resources.  When you face unexpected demands, there is no need to panic.  Remember that I am with you.  Talk with Me, and listen while I talk you through each challenging situation.  I am not a careless God.  When I allow difficulties to come into your life, I equip you to fully handle them.  Relax in My Presence, trusting in My Strength.

2 Corinthians 12:9 "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Today, my prayer is that...

I will learn to trust BEFORE the worry. 

I will learn to trust THROUGHOUT the storm.

I will learn to trust that He sees the END when I can't even get my bearings in the now.

I will learn to trust in His strength.  His goodness.  His power.

Isaiah 26:3 "You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!"

Are you trusting Him today?  Will you join me in my prayer?

Broken Wings

He was a seagull, same as the others.

Yet he sat a little way off, looking aloof.

There, on the edge of the group, nothing extraordinary seemed to set him apart.  

But then he stood, took a few steps, turned a bit, and I saw it...

The broken wing.

I focused my lens and moved nearer until I'd gotten too close.  

In his pain and fear, he tried to scurry away.  

He was unable to fly but struggled to hide his vulnerability.

How many of us are like that injured gull?

We desire to be part of the group...

                       To fit in.  

                                  To belong.  

We try our best to look put together. Try to hide what we believe sets us apart, makes us ugly, vulnerable. We linger on the periphery, hoping to be accepted.

But life has injured us.  Broken our wings.  Made us unable to fly and when someone looks a little too closely at us, we often tend to scurry quickly away in fear.

The truth is, no one goes through life unscathed.  Some hurts are more visible than others, but they still exist in us all. 

When we have the courage to stand up and expose our brokenness, several things can happen:

Those around us will know we need help. As long as we claim "everything's fine", people are robbed of the opportunity and blessing to pray for us and assist us. Galatians 6:2:  Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  

God will use us.  Often others are hurting in exactly the same way. When you share your experience, it will encourage those around you.  Isaiah 40:31: but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on the wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint...  

What feels like vulnerability will become a strength.  Nothing goes wasted with God...not even your weakness.  2 Corinthians 12:9: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

Don't live life on the periphery.  

       We all have suffered a broken wing.  

                  Take your hurts to the Great Physician. 

                           He will not only provide healing, He will give you peace.

John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world."

The Cat in the Hat vs The God in the Bible

My feet are firmly planted...so much so, I've begun to grow roots.

It's not because I'm standing my ground or bravely taking an injustice on.  Nothing that valiant.
       
                   I'm frozen from confusion.
  
                             Overwhelmed.

                                      Dismayed.

I'm thinking about everything I need to do, should do, want to do...and I have no idea where to begin. 

I'm reminded of a quote from that childhood staple, "The Cat in the Hat"...'And this mess is so big, and so deep and so tall, we cannot pick it up.  There is no way at all!'

My mess is not a pile of physical things.  Well, maybe part of it is.  Having just finished a major community outreach project, I'm playing catch up.

Clothes are somewhere between needing to go downstairs to be washed and needing to go upstairs to be folded and put away; the dining room table resembles a messy desk; kitchen counter tops are cluttered and there are dishes in the sink.  That alone can slow me down.

But there's more.  There are things that need a more concentrated thought process than housework.  I need to do some writing and research for an upcoming writer's conference, there's the third installment of my blog series on the Free Market I need to tackle, books to read, emails to send, calls to make.  And I'm not even at work this week.

And then there's that tug in my spirit to relax.  I want to take these 5 days away from the office and put my toes in the sand, maybe catch a movie, have lunch with a friend.  But I feel guilty because of the more 'important' things that need my attention.

And so I stand in the middle of the living room, looking around, uncertain of where or how to begin.  Sound at all familiar?

In frustration I sit down on the couch.  It would be so easy to flip on the TV, push everything from my mind, and veg out. 

Instead, my eye catches my Bible.  I open it to Philippians 4:6-7

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

A few lines later, I have underlined verse 13 as well:  "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

And so I  remember what that first step should have been.  To lay it all down at His feet.  Are laundry, and bills, and research assignments earth-shattering issues?  No, of course not.  I should be grateful that's all I have to deal with today.  But still, He wants it all.  The big and the small.  Like the verse says..."in everything...present your requests to God."

Because when I do that, then "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

He can give me the clarity to prioritize, the strength to tackle it bit by bit, and the peace that relaxes my spirit and restores my soul.

When the 'mess is so big, and so deep and so tall, we cannot pick it up.  There is no way at all' it's true...we can't in our strength.  But He can.  And He will.  We just have to ask.

The Chocolate Bunny Idol

Now that I've been on this 'fast' a full 10 days...a third of the way...I've made some observations.  There's not enough time for me to list - or you to read - all of them in one sitting, so I'll share one a day.  I give them to you in no particular order except to say that some don't seem to have any deep spiritual meaning on the surface, but still, I'm discovering strengths and uncovering weaknesses, so at least for me, it's all valid intel.

Observation number one:  I miss chocolate.  Period.  I don't believe we've ever been separated this long since...well, since we were first introduced - most likely in my toddler days..  And THAT was a very long time ago.

Chocolate and I, we have this love-hate relationship.  I love it, and it hates to see me smooth-skinned and thin.  Seriously though, stepping away from sweets has been the second most difficult thing I've done the past week and a half.  Wow...put in those terms it hardly sounds like the eternity I feel it's been!

On the other hand, while it is obviously a weakness of mine, I found that I have incredible strength.  As someone who loves to bake, chocolate is all over my kitchen.  In fact, in the past 10 days I have baked one of my 'famous' homemade chocolate cakes with homemade chocolate icing for someone's birthday, and a batch of sugar cookies garnished with caramel, white and dark chocolate and sea salt for another friend.
From those things I've taken not one taste.  Not a lick of the spoon.  "Don't torture yourself" I hear some saying..."purge your house of it".  I could do that, but life is wrought with temptations - big and small - and we cannot live our days in avoidance.  I need to be able to stare it in the eye and say, "God is in control of my life, not my desires".  If something isn't good for me, I need to learn to walk away.

Don't get me wrong...in 20 more days, I may in fact have a piece of chocolate.  But it won't be the over indulgence it might once have been.  For starters, I suffered through a 3 day headache as I literally withdrew from sweets.  That's a sobering situation.  Nothing should have such a hold on me that I have to have physical pain from it...that's an addiction.

I started this journey to remove some idols I saw being set up in my life.  Anything that reaches addiction status is an idol for sure.  Reminds me a little of that chocolate idol in Veggie Tales "Rack, Shack & Benny".  If you're not familiar with this classic, it's based on Daniel 3 - a portion of scripture that God has put "in my way" at every turn for a number of months now.  The story (short version) is about three of the Hebrew men taken into captivity by King Nebuchadnezzar.  They were given new names, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  The king created a 90 foot high image of gold that all were to worship, but these three men refused.  Word got back to the king and he summoned and questioned them.  They stand firm with these words from Daniel 3:16 - 18 "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.  But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."  Upon hearing those words, the king orders them to be thrown into a furnace which he has heated 7 times hotter than usual.  The men are tossed into the furnace - the heat so strong it kills those who throw them in - but 4 men are seen walking around in the fire unconsumed.  The king shouted to them to come out and is so impacted by how they have been protected, he warns everyone that if they say anything against the God of these men, that person will be killed.  

So I do miss chocolate, but I do not "love the bunny" enough to keep it an idol in my life.  I am willing to surrender that desire for one so much more important and life-giving...desiring after God.  Psalm 103:2 & 5 "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."