Daddy returns home today. I am so thankful. I hit my limit last night. Tired. Hormonal. Missing my husband who has been out of town since Thursday. Frustrated with my children, then frustrated with myself for my frustration with them...(been there?) They are tired and miss their Daddy too. To top it all off, Daddy tried to call home to touch base during bedtime and the cell phone connection was horrible. The children (and I) got our hopes up to talk with him and it couldn't happen.
After tucking them in, I sat in tears, trying to get to the bottom of my weariness. I was brought back to the same sin story in my life...my insane commitment to trying to "do" everything from my flesh. Are you tired of reading my struggle with this yet? Because I am tired of saying it over and over again. Seriously. When will I get it? When will it finally stick? I need God.
I feel like such a fake. I claim to follow God, but too frequently start out on my own trail first. It is not the "big" sin that people gossip about you for...it is worse...the little daily pride battle that seems much harder to effectively change. My foolish, foolish pride cannot seem to admit my need for Him until I fall. Wouldn't life be so much easier if I just started out at His Feet, instead of tripping all over myself just to end up there anyway?
I started searching for some Scripture to help and found this by Anne Graham Lotz (Billy Graham's daughter), An Open Letter to the Weary.
"Sometimes when I am very weary, I succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. I do what I have to do, or what's expected of me, or what I've committed to, but I have no mental, emotional or physical energy for anything else. And because Jesus is invisible, gracious and understanding, I allow Him to be slowly eased to a secondary place in my life. I sleep through my prayer time, I turn down new opportunities for service, I become lethargic about the Kingdom of God. I am in survival mode. Or so I think."
If you follow the link above, it will take you to an outline for a study of Haggai 1-2:23. What a perfect Scriptural prescription for where I am. Reordering priorities. Getting back to the basics of God first, rather than demanding my own comfort and desires. I found it so interesting that the people were told 4 times in this passage, "Give careful thought to your ways." Going through life without pausing to think and pray about our ways is a problem. It seems smoother and easier, but it not the way we were commanded to live.
I need to return to my first love. Instead of just being in God's fan club and talking about Him...I need to be in better relationship and talking to Him. To be completely, totally honest, I have found lately in my times of weariness I often want to retreat to reading mindless garbage (celebrity gossip) rather than the refeshing Word of God. I have been in a funk of thinking of the Word as something that is just there to challenge me and make me work harder. I have forgotten the refreshing, grace-filled nature of God. If life is all about balance, my scales have been tipped too far to the "works" side of things. It is honestly not that I think I have to earn my salvation. I just feel guilty and lazy when I am not doing something for God. I have gotten it all mixed up. Straighten me out, Lord. Bring me back to the truth of who you are.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
7 comments:
well i'm sitting here at home with ella (who is still sick) and not at church where i really wanted to be! i think God always wants to show me that my plans are not always his plans. it always brings the worst out in me! anyway...thanks for this post. we certainly are fakes....but you have actually been real here. and this is a quote my pastor says at every benediction "your sin is not a hindrance to the work of Christ in you. it is the VERY REASON of the work of Christ in you." let that sink in!
I do so much the same thing. I feel that I must muster up the energy and strength to carry the load myself. When all He wants is for me to rest in Him and let Him do it through me. It is a struggle I wonder if I will ever overcome on this side of heaven!
I feel dreadfully 'weary and burdened', as Jesus put it. I'm so glad to know that He calls me to Him JUST AS I AM!
I've printed off this study now and plan to do it today or tomorrow. Thanks for the link Jen. I feel like you wrote this post today describing my heart in vivid detail. I am a weary, weary fake!
Chris in Canada
You are one of the neatest people I have never met. You have such a willingness to share, and I believe this ministers to so, so many people.
My heart almost breaks for the life and faith struggles you are experiencing now. I think you are hard on yourself, and I say that as someone who is the same way. I think that people who worry about these things are also people who WANT to do the right thing. That is half the battle.
I sure don't have any "answers", EXCEPT that I know that you are going in the right direction - the only direction. May we all head that way.
All too true. All too true. And I'm right there with you in the weariness section. Our daddy is gone for a few days, but I had to ship a couple off to the grandparent's because I'm not quite ready to deal with 5 completely by myself when sleep is still being deprived. :) Hope yours returns home soon!
Just a big old (((hug)))!
Oh, how I love this post. Not because of what you're going through, but because I'm so thankful I'm not alone.
I'm a person that needs to have things in order all the time in order to function mentally, so that more often than not leaves little time just sitting and listening to Jesus and learning. My priorities are so out of whack and He is speaking to me so clearly about this.
Thanks, again for posting this. I'm going now to study this passage. :)
Hang in there. You are an amazing mother! God will honor your broken heart with gladness and joy!
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