My friend, Dolly, who will guest post in a few days,
asked me to write on the challenge of change when we’re stuck in a rut and
looking for fresh strength.
My sister 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.
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 such great news.
There might be a rap-song type commercial at the beginning. Just x out of it to get to the song, "Greater," by Mercy Me.