The sunshine is warm today and I know what God's called me to do.
Just Be.
I get so lost in plans and responsibilities and filling my schedule. Sometimes I am buried beneath seemingly thousands of demands.
"You don't understand," I mutter at my husband, as I try to explain how I'm juggling umpteen different roles and barely staying afloat.
But maybe he understands more than I do. Maybe his laid back personality allows him to more easily adapt to the art of being.
I'm laid back sometimes, but most of the time I am hyper-aware of everything that needs to be accomplished. I like to do everything well, which is great. But it's only great until I stop altogether doing the only that matters: Simply Being With Jesus.
The funny thing is, most days I aim to just be, but anything and everything gets in the way. The dishes are piling up, there's dirt on the floor, I have a world of things to plan and prepare, one-hundred people that need my attention, and two-hundred problems that need to be solved- there's just no time to be.
The truth is, there's no time in my day to NOT just be. I'm complaining about not staying afloat, but where is my fuel coming from?
When will I understand that it's not about doing, but instead about being? Jesus doesn't measure His love for me based on performance, tasks, or productivity. His love for me is measured by one thing only: What He has already done on the cross. That changed everything. That changed my need to work for acceptance and grace. He died so that I could have abundant life and lay to rest all of my doubt and guilt and shame about not doing enough.
Jesus is concerned with transforming my heart first. Before anything else, I can rest in His presence and know that's enough. First, my heart will be renewed and changed by drinking in the fullness of His love and then that will spill into my outlooks, desires, thoughts, and actions. There is no life that comes out of to-do lists and task-doing that is centered around performing to please. Jesus wants my heart. Once I surrender my heart to Him daily by stopping to connect with Him and allowing Him to strengthen me, His love will outshine everything that I try to be on my own. His desires will become my desires to love and serve others. My actions will follow my heart transformation and God will purify my intentions. He will make my actions and responsibilities come from a place of love, rather than duty.
I long for this. I long for Jesus to have complete control of my heart, guiding my every step. I long for Him to free me of my guilt and the burdens I grip tightly whispering that I'm not doing enough. I yearn for Him to change my perspective.
It is getting harder and harder to not be selfish in this world; to not be only consumed with building a perfect little kingdom for yourself, with all of your own strength, and blocking out any need for God.
Who am I if I don't need God? Who am I if I don't have His love etched throughout my skin and bones? I'll tell you who I am: I am tired and broken, ashamed and selfish, lonely and definitely not content, anxious and drained, shattered and lacking vision, void of compassion and completely lifeless. A total mess, trying to survive by doing, rather than being.
My prayer for each of you is that this truth will be planted deep within your heart. Simply being God's daughter and hungering for His presence is the key to allowing God to transform everything else that follows. Fleshly tendencies will always lead back to the lies that you're not doing enough, that you're not enough. In those moments, I pray for God's grace to point you to the truth once more.
