(All photos from my recent trip to Iceland)
Life is a funny thing. There is so much to learn, so much to do it can all get overwhelming; if you let it.
Myself, I am a doer. Ii I see a task that I can master, by golly my little engines get going and I want to get it done. If I do not have a number of tasks to complete I start to move slower, feel really lazy. Wasting time scares me.
God has been reshaping my mindset on tasks
Lately I have been in a lot of prayer about next steps in my life. Every ‘big’ thing that has come up lately pretty quickly gets put back down. Vacations pan out, but ‘missions’ trips’, possible options just don’t. Not that the opportunity ends (other than India where I literally never found my passport so couldn’t go), but I have felt a lot of God asking me to close doors that ARE open. That doesn’t sit well with my doer self. Whether it is an opportunity to join a phenomenal ministry in Seattle, the amazing chance to go and learn what is happening in ministries in Uganda…I just keep getting redirected. “How did you know?” Well, thank you for asking.
Step out of anxiety
Change is not something that frightens me; it just isn’t. Being outside of God’s will/covering/shelter; now that does. The anxiety that I start to feel when I have too many balls in the air or am walking down what is probably someone elses’ path, anxiety sets in. So thankful for the kind of anxiety that ‘directs our steps’. I am coming to learn there are a lot of amazing people doing amazing things in the world, and it just rocks. Hard to not want to jump on board or just soak in every minute you can get with them. From my friend Megan T, who has been faithfully meeting with the same refugee family for years, at first helping them assimilate and now genuinely calling them family; my friends Beau, Quinn and Brittany who are all rocking it living full time in Uganda changing kids lives; my friend Megan J who has been throwing herself into learning about missionary care and actually addressing the need to love on those who do ‘longer’ to long term missions; my friend Kristin who gave up a lucrative and forward moving job to take a job helping manage a coffee shop that is focusing its attention on truly being among and impacting the community; to my friends Bethsaida in New York and Emily in Seattle, who are helping raise awareness and working to eradicate sexual exploitation;… these are just some of the people that came off the top of my head as I typed. So many amazing things out there to invest time, money, brain power into; how can someone not get overwhelmed if they let themselves?
Go with the current
As I mentioned before, if I see something in front of me, I will try to go for it. But the Lord has been teaching me to cease striving. He LOVES to show off, so why am I trying to take control? A really wise man I met last week gave me a great analogy (apologies for butchering it and any misquoting). He said walking with God is like a river; you know the kind of river you float down in a raft? If you stay on your raft in the middle of the river, you get moving. When you are squarely on the little raft you are able to look up and around at the beautiful scenery slowly, and other times quickly, going by you. You can feel the sun, hear the birds, laugh and talk with people and strangers yet not strangers on the river with you. However, when you dump off the raft and try to start swimming sideways, or even upstream, you miss out. You don’t see what God is up to, but instead you have a nose full of water and you are tiring yourself out. Even if you are pointing downstream you are working crazy hard, going slower, and MISSING IT. Sit back down in the raft. It doesn’t mean you are idle, it means you are moving with Him…allowing Him to take you. Doesn’t mean you don’t have to work for it, because sometimes you get stuck in an eddy and need to paddle out, or have to hang on during the rapids or move yourself out of the path of rocks. God WANTS to take you down the stream, He wants to show you what is up ahead, but for now, enjoy the scenery around you. Do not be obviously to the stumps that could be protruding, or the friends that may have fallen off and need a hand back into their raft, but enjoy it, go with the current, don’t get caught too close to the shower where the current isn’t strong.
He has spoken to years to me “Be still and know that I am God”and “Cease striving” but it has never made as much sense as it did with that analogy. The doer in me was never ok with just sitting on my duff. “God! I can’t just sit still! How am I to do that AND serve you, AND love you, AND be fruitful!?” Little did I realize I was probably just trying so hard to swim that I did not see how much more beautiful, more fruitful and just how much more sense it makes to take the raft approach and save my energy for when the rapids do come?
The visual of seeing how God continues to move us downstream as long as we stay on track with Him, that is freeing. It was life altering.
It isn’t that we are not to work hard or pursue things, but there is a tangible difference between that and striving on our own strength. We need our head out of the water to be prepared to kick out of eddy’s, or swim past the rocks, or help our friends back onto their rafts. When we take on swimming upstream of an endless river, we are squarely setting ourselves up for burnout.
So for now, if you see a big smile on my face, it is because I am taking in the beautiful trees and the chirping birds as I whiz downstream in God’s current. Let’s go float the river together 🙂 If you see me start trying to swim, please splash me.
