Sick kids, Micah ears are infected again, causing a low grade fever. Laundry piling up, 4 kids will do that to you. Kitchen floor begging a mopping. Easter baskets to fill. Emails to return. Bills to reconcile. Posts to write. Sick kids needing momma at all hours of the night. Doctor to visit. Yesterday,Today. Tomorrow. Next week. My best laid plans are futile. I can schedule, pray about, and orchestrate my time to my heart's content, even building in margin and anticipating the unexpected, but the reality is, I'll never be in control.
Why, then, do I continue to believe I am, only to end up frustrated by my inability to finish off the to do list and feel the relief of accomplishing something?
I know the answer. Because I've yet to fully understand and practice what it means to trust the Lord completely with everything in my life, AND my self-worth/identity is still wrapped up in what I do instead of who I am in
Christ.
It is time to yield, again, to the lesson at hand and give everything right back to the Lord. The sick kids. The limited time. The responsibilities, big and small. The desires of my heart. Knowing that this is what I must do is so much harder than doing it. I must swallow my pride and let go of expectations. I must trust that God, the Sovereign Lord I truly love will take care of every last detail. I must practice what I preach -- to set my eyes on Jesus, focus on and follow Him throughout my day, casting aside my plans for later and tomorrow. I must be willing to say, I can't do, instead of I can do -- all the while trusting the Lord to do all things, strengthening me in the process.
It is the delicate balance between wisdom and belief. It is the "all things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial" see-saw
.
One of the tasks on my list is to complete a review of "
Experiencing the Resurrection: The Everyday Encounter That Changes Your Life" by Dr. Henry Blackaby and Melvin Blackaby for Multnomah books. I'm about half way through , and truly enjoying the read, yet it keeps finding itself covered by papers on my desk, hidden underneath the folded laundry on the couch, and pushed aside to culddle with a feverish child. Somehow, it's place seems exactly to be what Blackaby is talking about. He writes,
"As a Christ, you're to be a witness for Christ--a visible demonstration of every truth God has said. But the religious culture in which we live encourages us to just practice religious activity. As a result, we misunderstand our relationship with God and miss out on experiencing His power....But, as Christians, we're children of Go! If we're faithful in a little, He can make us rulers over much.You've been given the opportunity to function in the realm of resurrection power--the most exciting life you could ever imagine. What then could God do in your life if He knew you were wholly yield to Him?"
I want to yield to His work instead of my own. As the celebration of Christ's resurrection approaches, I pray we all will look beyond the Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, for a greater understanding of what it meant for Christ to lay down His life for us -- that through His death, we have the very life we cling to.
As I focus on that in my own life, I'm going to lay down things this coming week that are of much worth to me. I'm going to yield to the Lord's work, instead of mine. In the absence of doing the things I consider important and of worth, I hope to reflect on the power of the resurrection and experience its truth on my life.
What does the resurrection of Christ really mean for us? What does it reveal about the heart and mind of God? And what real differences can the miracle of the resurrection make in your life today?
