Wednesday, February 6, 2013

learning to be weak


I wrestled with the Lord in getting out of my warm comfy bed this morning. Literally my quiet time began with me arguing with God, telling Him all the reasons why i shouldn’t have to get up. I mean i was up late last night and my kids woke me up in the middle of the night and i just am too tired for Him to REALLY expect me to get up. I do think there are times when the Lord wants you to rest your body but i know, ok, KNOW!!! that this was not one of them. So i finally dragged, my feet out of my bed to tip toe (I find when i seek to have quiet time before the Lord, my kids have super sonic hearing and wake up at the drop of hat, that is if i dropped a hat. You get the point) down the hallway to spend sometime with Him. I find that sentence hard to follow because of the ( ) things, sorry. I’m sure you can smell what I’m stepping in.

So i got up and began my prayers with prayers that were pretty much, “Lord please teach me to love you more than sleep and my warm comfy bed and my own ambitions whether they be to be lazy or to get something done.” I really felt/feel so weak in Him. You see, we have been busy. Out of the past 3 weeks we have had company for 2 full weeks and then the last week we were sick. But as i was sitting here trying to quite myself and at the same time resist the urge to fall back into blissful sleepy world, the Lord reminded me of a dream i had. I don’t remember much about the dream except a verse i was talking about with a group of young adults. It was Proverbs 3:7-8 “Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.” (i memorized this as a child and always thought it was funny because the KJV says ‘health to your naval’ haha bellybutton) Why did the Lord tell me this? I know that before that verse is the verse 3:5&6 which is the famous “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge HIm and He will direct your paths.”  Then it hit me, I. am. weak. I need HIS strength in my bones and to not trust my own sorely lacking wisdom. This is pretty much what happens: Our life gets crazy and busy (anyone who knows us knows that this is a norm for us), I go in strong and by the end am so bedraggled that i can hardly find my footing. What happens in this time to shift me from one extreme to another? Hence the verse-”It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones”
I think that i go into these times ‘raring to go’ with a lot of good intentions but so many of those times i am relying partly on my own wisdom and strength to do them, to persevere on my own. So much so that by the end, i am so lacking that i can hardly get my footing.      
I need ‘STRENGTH FOR MY BONES’ and ‘HEALING TO MY FLESH’. 
 So this morning i was sitting here wondering why i come out of these situations in survival mode and not thriving. I mean i can analyze with the best of them and come up with lots of ‘play on words’ with what happened and what i did wrong or how everyone else is wrong. Hence (yet again) the verse- “Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil.”
The Lord wants our weakness. I mean He says that in our weakness HE is made strong. But for so much of my life i give Him my weakness but it is after i have exhausted all of my own resources and wisdom (or lack there of) that that is my only choice. I wonder maybe if i could learn to be weak before Him at the beginning of these seasons well...pretty much all the seasons. Isn’t this important? Why do i not do this is the first place? I think it is probably a mixture of pride and stupidity. Praying to be less stupid =)and prideful in the seasons of my life. That i would be weak before Him and nota weak as in i’ve exhausted all my own resources but a weak laid open before him weak. That i wouldn’t discredit His word or strength and have ears to hear and a heart to obey. That i would turn down the static of my own mind and be able to tune into Him. Praying the same for you guys too. May we all be unwise and weak with our Jesus being the only thing we have to offer in life.=) Peace and Blessings, my sweet friends