A lot of balls in the air, so I reached into the archives for this post, which seems relevant to me, at least. Maybe I need to read it more than anyone else this week.
My friend, Dolly, asked me to write on the challenge of change when we’re stuck in a rut and looking for fresh strength. My sister, Tammy, and I just had a discussion on that very subject last week.
I can’t cover the whole gamut of the difficulty of change when we’re entrenched in our bad ways, so I’ll just address one of the most enduring challenges for me—and that is abiding with God in the middle of screaming external pressures.
My friend, Dolly, asked me to write on the challenge of change when we’re stuck in a rut and looking for fresh strength. My sister, Tammy, and I just had a discussion on that very subject last week.
I can’t cover the whole gamut of the difficulty of change when we’re entrenched in our bad ways, so I’ll just address one of the most enduring challenges for me—and that is abiding with God in the middle of screaming external pressures.
In a Bible study, I’m currently doing, Priscilla Shirer says, “True abundance is really seen when you’re sitting in a prison circumstance, when you’re eye to eye with an impossible situation, and right in the heart of your impossible, you experience the fullness of God.”
So, the time to experience abiding and resting in God is right in the middle of a to-do list that screams to be done. Right here. Right now.
“But . . . , “ you say, “you don’t understand what I’m up against.”
We’re all up against. We all hear that voice that if we don’t get it done, the walls will cave in.
When I was trying to recover from Posttraumatic stress, people would tell me I was always in a hurry.
I was.
I was in a hurry to run away from the way I felt. But, of course, I couldn’t. I had to face it. Part of facing it was to stop, to be intentional about quiet moments. Often, I didn’t even want to sit, but I knew it was an essential part of my recovery. Instead of fighting the way I felt, I had to accept it. The way I felt wouldn’t kill me. In time, my legs and hands stopped shaking as I stopped fearing my feelings and the peace inside me grew.
I was.
I was in a hurry to run away from the way I felt. But, of course, I couldn’t. I had to face it. Part of facing it was to stop, to be intentional about quiet moments. Often, I didn’t even want to sit, but I knew it was an essential part of my recovery. Instead of fighting the way I felt, I had to accept it. The way I felt wouldn’t kill me. In time, my legs and hands stopped shaking as I stopped fearing my feelings and the peace inside me grew.
We are the ones who often set ourselves up for shaking hands by our over scheduling and our excuses for not taking time outs. It’s almost as if we’re addicted to busyness. The time to stop that is now. The time for change is now.
And yes, we’re going to fail. Change is hard. But God’s grace is always there. I still struggle with hurrying, with feeling life is an emergency, but God’s amazing grace comforts me in ways I can’t even explain.
I’ve been waking up singing this song for days. It’s taken from I John 4:4 " . . . greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." and it helps me to know that the One inside of me is greater than anything screaming at me from the outside. And when we’re trying to find fresh strength, when we’re trying to change, these words are great news.
There might be a commercial at the beginning. Just x out of it to get to the song, "Greater," by Mercy Me.
I'm so excited to share the cover of my new book releasing in January,
A Plan for Everything!
It is the sequel to, A Key to Everything available HERE.
