Each day's mission

A couple of weeks ago I scribbled something in my notebook right before I went to bed. I just reread it and decided to post it here:

I’m going to get up every day and put on the armor of God. Then I’m going to do what is in front of me to do for that day. And I’m going to earnestly pray that God will show me when it’s the right time to break out of this…to the next thing.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to pray, seek, and do what’s in front of me – giving all for His honor and glory.

He has not forgotten me or my willingness. He will show me the way. And it won’t be too late or too early.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that my Lord is faithful and trustworthy. He is the Good Shepherd; I am one of His sheep. His sheep know His voice. I know His voice...it is loving...it protects. Thank you, my Lord.

Time for fun...

Recently, after struggling to write about some of my core beliefs - a task which I found both exhausting and clarifying - and also after taking some uncomfortable, yet courageous steps in a particular area of my life, I sensed the Lord whisper to me: “Now it’s time for fun.”

Being the analytical person I am, I thought, “But wait, is fun ever a worthy goal? I mean look at you, Lord Jesus – the one I’m following – your fun was dying on a cross? Do you really mean it's time for fun? It sounds so appealing...so desirable...but could it possibly be your voice I'm hearing? Fun is supposed to be what the weak long for - what the undisciplined accomplish, right?" And then I considered something…

When it seems I’m having the most fun is when I’m living with purpose. Whether I’m laughing-until-I-cry with family or friends, or if I'm praying with a friend while tears of sorrow are streaming down both of our faces - either could be defined as fun if fun's definition includes living a relational life of purpose.

And who in this world has ever had more relational purpose than Jesus? His death was incredibly painful – I can’t even imagine. But if having purpose brings fun, then has anyone ever had more fun than Jesus Christ?

So I’ve accepted the words from my Lord. I’m looking forward to a year of fun as I live out my purpose by His grace and through His strength.

God & Annie

After Abby and I wrote our tale (previous post) I started thinking about how there might be some similarities between our process, and the process God and I are going through in writing the story of my life.

So here’s how the process with Abby went:

- I initiated the process…supplied the computer, the blog – i.e. provided the tools.

- Some of me is in Abby. While Abby’s definitely her own individual (there’s no doubt, right?), she’s also got some of me in her as she’s my biological son’s, biological daughter. There’s some Annie blood running through her, if you will

- Abby and I both wanted to create a story. We were both excited and eager to bring something into being that wasn’t there before we created it.

- I asked her to get us started… What kind of a story should we write? How do you want to begin it?

- She thought a moment and then began. And what you couldn’t see if/when you read the post, was a sweet part of the process to me. She gave me one word at a time, because she is learning to read and wanted to see each word appear as I typed it on the screen. As she watched her words appear, she smiled – first at the computer, then up at me. My heart was brimming with love...

- Then, after she gave me a sentence or a few, she stopped talking, looked up at me and declared, “Your turn.” And this is how we continued, going back and forth with our story line.

- When the baton was passed to me, I paused, considered what Abby had put on the page, and began adding to the story. Now here’s where it got interesting... I both adored Abby’s creativity and found it somewhat challenging, because from my adult, inside-boxes perspective, I was hoping for an end result of a story I would somewhat understand and be proud of. Yet I desperately did not want to “take control,” knowing then it would be my story, and not our shared story, which is where the fun is.

- So what did I do? I lovingly accepted every word Abby gave me, only once or twice saying, “Do you mean X, instead of Y?” – to which she would nod enthusiastically, and say, “yes!” And then when it was my turn, I steered my pieces of the story toward something that I thought would bring the best end result, yet with no guarantees, because once I passed the baton back to Abby, who knew where it would go (which brought as much excitement as it did challenge)?

So how might Abby’s and my process be similar to the process of us writing our life stories with God? Doesn’t God start out by giving us life and some tools in this world? And to His believers, and Christ followers, we definitely have His Spirit within us, inherently making our story His story. And I do trust and imagine that He is delighted with us the way I was delighted with Abby. That He is eagerly waiting to see what we want to do with the story line and accepts our inputs lovingly, because clearly our goal is to write a good story together...

I don’t think I should worry as much as I do about the individual words, lines or paragraphs I give my Lord. Our all-knowing, all-powerful God has a remarkable way of weaving a glorious tale out of the pieces we eagerly offer Him.