May 20, 2018

May 20, 2018

I want to find ways to love on my children, pay attention to their wants and needs. I search to meet a need in their little souls that I first need to meet mine.  I find their selfishness disheartening and know that Holy Spirit must feel disheartened by mine.  I often see the surface attention that I give to my children without spending the time to listen to their souls and validate their interests without a judgement of steering my child into something that I think is more acceptable or Godly.  Why can’t joy simply be that…..? Joy.  Why does it have to be because of something we have to do or say that brings joy to the soul?  Where does that emotion rest if not bubbling up from the endless well of the Holy Spirit?  Why do I work so hard to manufacture it, claim it, rest in it, feel it, proclaim it and feel like it is unattainable?  Why do I want to stifle the giggles of my children when I am tired and why doesn’t my soul feel refreshed by hearing their giggles?  What am I bound by?  Why I am afraid to rest in the pleasant presence of the Lord?

When my heart truly doesn't feel like I measure up and the satisfaction of “arriving” seems unattainable, I feel incomplete.  Why do I give the drive in my personal soul out to someone that makes me feel accountable by the opinion of other’s?  Sometimes there is a place and a time that you aim to please.  Whether it be your boss, a client, or a good deal made that will bring the desired attention, admiration, wealth that is measurable and attainable by the opinions of the masses.  The attention it brings is fleeting and the emptiness remains for the next opportunity of “what have you done for me lately?”  The longing to please gets harder to satisfy and the evidence in my life of running after the empty makes me so tired.  The reach to find the joy of the spirit seems to be even wider in the gap to please others.  The lack of rest for my soul makes me weary and I find success and attention harder to give or receive by others incredibly and increasingly difficult.

I have a close girlfriend that I talk to about this very topic all the time.  Sometimes we keep the conversation at a surface level so that is easier to swallow in small bites.  When we allow ourselves to go deep, the anxiousness grows. We often discuss not wanting to work so hard.  We find dissatisfaction of the lack of progress in most days and know that it will cost more from each of us to bring each day around to the evenness we seek at the end of the day.  The days that we feel like we have lost as many steps as we have gained, keep us up at night feeling like we have failed to be all we could be each day.  You add in life’s stresses and then we are always striving from behind the eight ball never to reach a level playing field. But what is it all for?  How does it impact the inner parts of our souls that can’t be satisfied?  What will it change in the universe?  What will it mean to the world or how will it have impact for Christ?  The answers most days is that it doesn’t.  Every once in a while, we find a moment to connect, to add insight to a hidden need or encourage a sister that may not get the encouragement needed if we were not right where God has chosen to put us. For this reason alone, I have stayed in the rat race of the office and the ever-unsatisfied role of pleasing people instead of pleasing my soul with the ministry of God.

I have thought for years that I wanted to be in the ministry of reaching women but didn’t have anything worthwhile to say.  The familiar whisper in my soul from what I have identified as my Father moving me forward towards sharing my journey has come to a point where ignoring the whisper has become an act of disobedience.  What do I share when the well is dry?  How do I find replenishment for the well?  The answer I know is not hidden away but is promised through God’s word if I am willing to accept His truth to meet the emptiness.  The courage to unpack the burden that the massive walls I have built around the truth that holds me back is where the journey to bring joy and rest to my soul begins.

Let’s start in the desire to be known by our Father.  I was told by a dear pastor friend of mine that we all have a big hole in our lives that cannot be filled up with the things of the world or from people or success. The whole is massive and oddly shaped and needs to have the depth and breadth of the Holy Spirit to fill in the crevasses that only He can find and fill.  Why do we try to fill them with other things when we know that all other things will fall short of the glory of God? The bible tells me that I am not a mystery to God.  That He created me with a purpose.  God knows me intimately, yet I find myself hiding from the one thing that will bring peace and joy.

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Psalm 139:1-4 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.  Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.

Lord, please forgive me from hiding from you. Forgive me for not bringing all my thoughts and fears to you and confessing that my heart falls short.  Forgive me for striving to please those around me and for not putting my desire to please you in front of everything else.   Please forgive me for neglecting my soul and my relationship with you which also impacts the very little souls that you have put in my care. Lord, please help me to love my children with wild abandon and to help build their lifelong love affair with you. Lord, mold me and make me into the woman you desire me to be.  I love you, Lord.

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