This post is going to be rather different than my normal posts - I just can't contain my excitement and awe over who God is and what He's done! I don't like disclosing details, but I can still give Him tons of glory in stating the generalities.
Background: I am someone who's always overachieved and striven to be excellent at everything I do. It's a type A, firstborn thing I guess... But the massive trap in living that way is that I'm never going to live up to my own expectations. No matter how supportive my family and friends are, I rarely feel good enough, and I always live under the oppressive shadow telling me I can and should be doing better/more. It's a seductive, poisonous lie that I've found follows knowing you are capable of succeeding; and it's a stronghold God has been faithfully and patiently washing out of me for quite some time now. Lately I've been re-convicted once more about this toxic mindset and it's been on my mind and heart to let God be the one to take the wheel - to trust Him as my provider and as the one who will open the right doors for me. Little did I know just how massively He would do so! Long story short, an opportunity that I hadn't even known to be looking for basically fell into my lap one day and I wasn't even sure what to do with it at first. Something that I would have traditionally considered myself completely unqualified for and unable to attain, suddenly made more simple and easy than my wildest dreams. Even after I thought I'd flubbed it and was kicking myself for letting something like that get away, it came right back as if I had done everything perfectly (which believe me, I SOOOO did not!) And not only did the opportunity stay, but the timing of it has become completely compatible with the adjustments I need to make. Instead of having to bend over backwards to make it work like I had thought - and traditionally have come to assume - I've been given grace to start at a time a pace that works for me completely. This whole thing has basically been one massive teaching lesson from God, regardless of the tangible blessings I've also been given. I've learned that as long as I lean on and trust in God to be the one to pave my path, He will do so with far more than the gravel I was planning on using. I can trust that He sees something inside of my of far greater value than anything I see, and He really is determined to draw it out no matter how stubborn I may be. He knows me best and will always be faithful to make me wait for the blessings I don't see up ahead. And the best part: even when I try my hardest to live His way and inevitably fail out of my own limits and weaknesses, He will always make up the difference with His astoundingly abundant grace!! I can have peace in knowing that no mistake I can make will ever be big enough to undo the goodness God has decided to lavish upon me. As long as I remain under His loving covering, I need not fear anything - not even myself.
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So - one month later and we’re still standing! Life is trying it’s best to get back to normal and I’m torn between wanting to jump right back into everything and knowing that I am far from done processing. Sleep has still been elusive and the strangest little things set off reactions I never would have had before, repeatedly reminding me that I need to be ok with not being ok all the time. My instinctual coping mechanism has always been to tackle my responsibilities head on and get whatever impossibly large amount of work is in front of me done, but this time is different. This time I haven’t been able to just grind away day after day. This time I feel those human limitations taking hold and I’m reminded that I’m not the one who’s job it is to take care of me. The Hebrew word Shalom gets translated as peace, but it literally means God’s power to consume/control the chaos in your life. I’ve definitely been needing some of that! Likewise the Hebrew concept of Shabbat gets translated as sabbath, but we have largely forgotten what it is for. Shabbat is taking time to intentionally rest in knowing that God is the One who takes care of me - embracing Shalom. It’s stopping whatever my regular work is and taking the time to be refreshed. This usually ends up meaning taking a day off, but it goes deeper than that... For me, it’s hard to rest even on my day off because my mind is still running with everything I have to get done tomorrow. It’s full of lists and planning, and no matter how much has already been taken care of it still finds things to “work” on. I haven’t actually stopped working, I’ve just stopped being productive. That’s what made me realize I was leaning on myself instead of God. If I was leaning on God as my provider every day of the week instead of just one, it would be easy and natural for me to leave the work week behind on Saturday. Yes, I still have to go to work because I still need to eat and pay the bills, but I don’t have to do so as my own provider. To paraphrase Isaiah 30:15-17, my strength is in quietness and trust. I have learned a lot from Israel’s journey with God in the Old Testament, and this passage highlights one very important lesson they never seemed to learn for long. Fighting their enemy was not their mistake - God often led the Israelites into battle and gave them victory against astounding odds - their mistake was fighting alone. The crucial difference between the times God led them to victory and the times they were beaten down was that in one case God was their deliverer before and after the battle. When they lost it was because they were fighting out of their own strength and timing rather than God’s. A similar outward action was needed to meet the same need, but from an entirely different source and motivation, leading to the opposite effects. The same may very well go for us today. Living out of Shabbat doesn’t necessarily mean not having a job or commitments, but it means that I don’t rely on my job to be what provides for me and gives me security. My welfare is not wrapped up in how hard I work or how well I perform - it’s in God’s hands, and that’s why I can simply do my best and trust Him to take care of what I can’t (which is a lot). For me to truly enter into Shabbat on the weekend, I need to be living from Shabbat all the time - recognizing that He is my priority and He will take care of the little things for me as long as I let go and trust Him to do so. |
ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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