Being Still

One would think I would have learned this little lesson by now.  I have been rolling this over and over in my head. “Be still and know that I am God”.  One thing that I hate more than anything is being still.  Being still represents not doing anything to me.  It makes me feel that I am not “working out my salvation”. I am being faced with the fact that I have to learn to trust the Lord for everything.  That He is my supply and my bread of life.  How hard is that simple Truth.  Freaking ridiculously hard…that’s how hard!  I am in the place where I am having to make some decisions right now, how much to take on, how to deal with people I don’t want to deal with, what’s my next move, and etc…  All of these situations are awaiting my attention.  I have placed so much stress on the fact that I have to make a decision that I miss the fact that the Lord has a plan for me and all I have to do is make the next right move.  Take the next right step.  It may be a long period of time between steps, but that is all I am required to do.  

I have become wrapped up in my actions that I forgot to consult that coordinator.  Being still has become a theme for me over the last year or so.  I keep coming back to resting in the Lord’s promise that He will supply ALL I need.  Supplying all I need means He will supply everything.  The methods he uses may not look how I want or be done the way I think is the best, but who I am to question that way the Lord works.  I have wrestled with the Lord on this very subject. The conclusion I have come up with is, I am a prideful being thinking my plans are better and higher than the Lord’s.  What a slap in the face.  

So, I know take rest in the fact that I am only responsible for the here and now.  I can be content where he has me, growing me and maturing me until it’s show time! I say thank you Jesus that I haven’t jumped or ran when I really wanted.  He will supply all my needs.

motivation is crap….

I have been thinking about a few areas in my life….spiritually, physically, and emotionally.  I recognize that there are areas of my life life in each of those categories that need some attention. All of those have one common denominator, I have no motivation.  Motivation may be the lamest excuse for not taking care of myself in all areas.  Motivation means to me that I need to have a prize at completion of a project or reaching a goal.  Sure there is something to be said of rewarding yourself for reaching a goal weight, for finishing some goal you have set for your self, or for completion of a huge task set before you.  But, maybe just maybe, I have a lack of conviction in my life instead of no motivation.  I lack conviction in caring for myself spiritually, physically, and/or emotionally.  Just like my physical body, if I don’t exercise my spiritual man on a consistent basis, I will become lazy, run out of breath during a race, or possibly  have a heart attack or stroke during some strenuous activity.  When do I realize that it’s not always about the end result as much as it is the reason/ conviction behind the things I do.  This is where I need to make a confession, I can get caught up in using the Lord’s blessings as my motivation.  I’m not saying I always do this but it is very easy to pursue things of the Lord to reap the benefits in the end, the prize.  Don’t get me wrong, I love prizes, I just want to live life with conviction and not always waiting for motivation.

Past never goes away….

I must first start by stating that most that know me, know that like most everyone else, I have a past.  Wow, big shocker right?  I am not one that dwells in the past now.  I use to think my past would always haunt me, but i know I am a new creation and have been redeemed. I have to believe that Truth or I can get really bogged down in guilt and shame.

Last night, I had a time where my past was thrown in my face.  Not by someone else, by me. Something triggered in me that led me straight to some old feelings that I thought were surrendered.  You might think that this has kept me down.  It really hasn’t.  I was down in those few short minutes that I was processing where the feelings and thoughts came from, but then I applied Truth to that “stinking thinking”.  Wow…that is so gay that I just said stinking thinking.  Anyway, I had a memory of a past relationship where I couldn’t communicate anything.  I was very caught up in pleasing the the other person.  I remember not feeling like I had any say in the relationship, that if I did say something that I would not be accepted, and that love really is just an emotion that would be stripped form me at any minute.  The great thing about this memory is that now I could see the other side of the coin.  In that relationship I didn’t know any better.  I had just some “life survival skills” at the time and had not and would not apply any Truth from the Lord.  

It’s an awesome feeling when you realize that you do matter, in the Lord I  can be complete lacking nothing. We all want to matter.  I want to matter.  I do matter.  It also is an amazing revelation when we realize that we daily have to CHOOSE to love.  Love is a feeling but it is also a choice.  We have the choice to love others when they wrong us just as they have the choice to love us when we wrong them.  That’s A-mazing.  That means that love doesn’t have to be conditional.  We can choose to love just as Christ loved.  We can choose to love the unloveable, we can choose to be and accept love when we don’t FEEL we deserve it.  

What’s funny is we have an enemy waiting to devour us all by showing us our faults when we least expect it. However, he can and is defeated when we hold fast to the thought that Christ loved us enough to redeem us, he CHOSE to forgive us, so we can now CHOOSE to accept that forgiveness.  I have chosen to accept my gift that the Lord has freely given and let loose of the guilt and shame that wants to creep in when I don’t see it coming.

So…I’m moving

not to another town

not to another job

not to another church

but to my grandparents house

I’m excited, yet kind of spooked 

all at the same time

yay for a bigger house

yay for cheaper rent

yay for a huge yard

yay i can have a garden

yay no more island traffic

so i am moving

next month