So rend your heart, and not your garments;
Return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and of great kindness;
And He relents from doing harm.
Joel 2:13
Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
Psalms 37:3
Life for me is currently living in the fog. The kind of fog that you
cannot see in front of you and you certainly can't see where
you have come from. I was talking with Rex about it, and honestly
it is hard to explain. It is a weird mix of extreme tiredness, nauseousness,
and just feeling so blessed. I just wonder how long can you live life like
this? All seems well as long as you keep doing the next thing, one foot in
front of the other, but since there is this fog, sometimes you round the
corner, and you see something you didn't even know existed.
This happened to me on Monday. I went down in the basement to get
a pair of shoes, and I saw the laundry pile. A quick assessment tells me
there are about 15 loads. And I realized, I had completely forgotten that
laundry was even something I was suppose to be doing! How could I have
let it get so backed up? Seriously, I have been married 8yrs now, and there
are only 5 of us! How long had it been since I had done a load?
I am guessing close to two weeks.
And since I have been in bed for most of the week,
I am now going to spiritualize my laundry pile.
I have been thinking about where the Lord
has me, and how much of my spiritual life is one foot in front of the other.
Spend time with Him, do my best to minister to my husband, and children,
and those He has put around me. All seems well.Then the Lord
will graciously lift the fog, and show me 15 loads of spiritual
laundry. Isn't interesting what He uses to show us where we are?
A thought shared at breaking of bread, a song on the radio, a verse quoted
by your child, a conversation with your spouse.
I think to myself, how could I have missed this? It certainly doesn't
happen over night! But I am quickly reminded of how kind
the Lord is, how He longs for me to render my heart to Him. I was
reminded on Sunday that HE is faithful, even when I am not!
So I will end this with some verses that Rex shared with me,
when I was trying to explain my fog to him,
I hope that they encourage you to press on as well!
Not that I have already reached [the goal] or am already fully mature,
but I make every effort to take hold of it because
I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing
I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly
call in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you
think differently about anything, God will reveal this to you also.
In any case, we should live up to
whatever [truth] we have attained.
Join in imitating me, brothers, and observe those who live
according to the example you have in us.
For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many
live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction;
their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are
focused on earthly things,
but our citizenship is in heaven, from
which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will transform the body of our humble condition into the
likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him
to subject everything to Himself.
Philippians 3:12-21
4 comments:
I've been there many times (and how many times in the past month?). Thanks so much for sharing that.
How wonderful that God is always faithful, and that His mercies are new every morning. He knows how many mercies we need! That He has begun a good work in us and that He will be faithful to complete it - wow!
Praying for you, my friend.
I can understand that! But I like how you are taking it to a spiritual level (even though laundry is an interesting analogy :) b/c I was reminded today that every mundane task intersects with the spiritual... every task is given us by God (and is a chance for us to know Him better).
Speaking in a spiritual sense, I have noticed that the more I consume of this world, the more hazy the Lord's work becomes. It just keeps me from fully appreciating what the Lord is doing, and how He wants to use me in each daily task. Thankfully, like you said, He is gracious to lift the fog at times and point these things out.
Thanks for the good reminders. I love those verses! It's so easy to focus on earthly things when are lives are consummed by them. By reminding myself that my citizenship is in heaven it helps my thoughts to be consummed by the Lord, our Saviour, rather than all my 'loads of laundry'!
- Lynn
Thank you for sharing, Shawna. I'm so glad you've been able to see the blessings in the midst of your fog! I tried not to get discouraged during my 'fog' in August/September when I was supposed to be starting school! We are back on track, but I still have to give things to the Lord because I can't do it on my own.
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