April 29, 2006
We Serve A Personal God
Let me just tell you what a sweet, personal, God we serve. I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed this last week. You know, those times when everything seems to converge at one time and threaten to suffocate you? I find it only a bit “coincidental” that things started careening out of control immediately after I wrote the text for the April E-letter talking about how much I’m learning to rest in the Lord in the midst of life’s chaos. (I’ll explain why you never received that E-letter in a minute.)
I really have been pressing in deeper and deeper into radical trust in the Lord. The more I pressed in, the more peace I felt that my life was in the same sovereign, powerful hands that created the universe and its ordered complexities. Is it any wonder that the enemy would try anything and everything to get me to worry and stress (and that the Lord would use the enemy’s plans to test me and make me stronger?)
Just this morning I was rehearsing the convergence of stress to my husband, who has been out of town until last night. The way my life is supposed to work is this way:
- Steve and I fly out on Friday mornings to speak and we return Saturday night.
- Steve flies to Los Angeles once-a-month for his other jobs.
- I write one book a year, in the summer while my kids are at camp.
- The rest of the days I’m home and available to my family for homeschooling, long talks, running errands, and occasional scrapbooking.
The reality is, the month of April has looked like this:
- Steve returned from 10 days in Israel only to fly out of town on business three more times this month.
- I have spoken at 7 different events this month.
- We met with our accountant for taxes and learned we must tighten the belt on the budget.
- I have interviews almost daily for my new book.
- The kids are stressed with finals and end-of-the-year projects due.
- I created and launched the “Personal Mom Coaching” ministry only to run into many frustrating glitches.
- I created a new E-letter format only to work on it all month and discover it must be tossed out and we have to start over with a new design.
- Clancy went out of town and we had out of town guests.
- All that, and the weather has wreaked havoc with Tucker’s system (he reacts adversely to barometric changes) and it feels like an emotional hurricane is demolishing our home from the inside-out.
- The icing on the cake was finding out that I am flying to New York in two weeks to be on the “Today Show” and a handful of other national media shows with the other girls to publicize the release of “The Facts of Life” on DVD. I weigh more than I’ve ever weighed in my life (with the exception of pregnancy,) I don’t have a thing to wear, and I’m afraid if I went shopping I would simply crumble in the dressing room in a pile of discarded, rejected outfits.
I’m trusting you, my friend, with this vomiting of emotion. Please don’t accuse me of having a pity party or feel the need to remind me that my life is fabulous and most of the world has “real” problems. I would also appreciate not receiving any emails telling me what a terrible mother I am and that I should slow down, stay home with my children, and support my husband. I am aware that I am blessed; I’m simply expressing my honest, albeit myopic, feelings. I also realize that I need to slow down and eliminate some good things in order to focus on the better things, like my family. I try very hard to carefully weigh the opportunities I say “yes” to, circumstances just seemed to tsunami me this month.
(I can usually handle it when I open myself up on the Internet, only to get broadsided by an email from someone who thinks they have the whole picture but there are big pieces of the puzzle they just don’t see. Which reminds me, for everyone who wrote me about what a terrible dog-owner I am. Believe me, we have been diligently and lovingly trying to potty train Donut for two years and for those who cited animal cruelty seeing Donut in her “pen,” did you not happen to see the little doggie door that opens up to a huge backyard where she is free to roam?)
Anyway, after pouring out my heart to Steve this morning, I picked up my Bible and the books I’m reading during my quiet times these days. I opened up to my reading for today in Beth Moore’s compilation, “Voices of the Faithful.” The devotional was from a woman in South Asia who encouraged the reader to pray for the “insignificant” things because we serve a God who cares about everything. So, I closed the book and asked the Lord to help me find a fabulous outfit in my closet to wear on the “Today Show.”
Next, I opened my Bible to my daily reading, which was in the sixth chapter of Matthew. Do you remember which verse is there!?! “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
Isn’t that so sweet of the Lord to immediately tell me not to worry about what I was going to wear because He was going to clothe me more beautifully than the lilies!
Even though I had a million things on my “to do” list, I purposed in my heart to press in to abiding in Jesus this morning and trust Him to make sure I accomplished all that was in His heart for me today. So I printed out my calendar for the next six months and prayed through everything that was already on my schedule from this afternoon all the way til October.
By the time I finished I was eager to hop on the computer and get working. But I felt the Lord say that He wanted to spend a bit more time with me. So, this time, I grabbed my iPod and headed into my walk-in closet to worship Him without embarrassing everyone in the house. I sat on the floor to sing, only to discover that my iPod was dead. Instead, I sat in silence. After a while I realized that a worship chorus was playing in my head. I tuned in to recognize the song but I couldn’t remember what the name of it was. I knew this was a song that my Spirit was singing to the Holy Spirit and I was so frustrated because I couldn’t remember the lyrics.
I looked down beside me and found a stack of papers that I had brought into my closet a while back. I thought, “No way. Are the lyrics to this particular song on one of these papers?” I leafed through the papers and guess what? On the last page was the song I was singing. I immediately fell down on my face and wept. More than anything, what I needed today was to know that the Lord was near. It wouldn’t even have mattered what the lyrics were to that song. The miracle for me was the intimate touch of the Lord.
Even so, He had something very specific He wanted to say to me today, this day of chaotic convergence. He said, or rather my spirit was saying to Him:
“I will bless the Lord forever
I will trust Him at all times
He has delivered me from all fear
He has set my feet upon a rock
I will not be moved
And I’ll say of the Lord
You are my shield, my strength
My portion, deliverer
My shelter, strong tower
My very present help in time of need
Whom have I in heaven but you
There’s none I desire beside You
You have made me glad
And I’ll say of the Lord
You are my shield, my strength
My portion, deliverer
My shelter, strong tower
My very present help in time of need
But He wasn’t finished with me yet. I wanted to know what “He is my portion” meant. So, I went into the office and did a topic search in my Logos Bible software and learned that portion has to do with the inheritance the sons of Jewish fathers received.
Which was a timely discovery because while I was reading I received a phone call from Sony Media learning that the appearance on “The Martha Stewart Show” had been canceled. Bummer. I was really hoping to be on her show, and maybe even have a chance to talk about my “Me in Mommy” book. The Lord immediately reminded me that He was my portion and that nothing the world has to offer can come close the riches that are already mine. All I have to do is seek Him in the Secret Place.
It is now the end of the day and I have accomplished everything I had deadlines for and I’m about to cook dinner so we can all sit around the table together as a family. I think I have entered His Rest today. Shalom.
Posted by weblion at 10:16 PM
