Your favor will fall like rain upon our surrendered lives, like showers reviving the earth. Psalm 72:6 TPT
I am a planner, an organizer, and a list-maker. Getting things done is my type-A default. So, when God quietly whispers, “Surrender your plans to Me.” I squirm a bit. It isn’t that I don’t want to live a surrendered life. Of course I do. It’s just that rest and stillness–feel like I’m trying to walk in two left shoes.
I know rest is important.
I know that, (most of the time,) stillness is required to hear God speak.
So why does my soul resist?
Tyranny of the urgent
I read somewhere years ago that we are all addicted to this “tyranny of the urgent.”
As if the world just can’t move on without our input or help.
I have to constantly remind myself, “Molly, this life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”
Actually, the past few years, I have been trying to reform my natural bent toward busy-ness by deliberately trying to take a nap when I feel all tapped out, or heaven forbid, actually taking a day off!
But, then my “To Do List” whispers it’s siren call, and off I go, thinking, “I’ll just get this one thing done and then I’ll rest.”
A clever scheme
Someone once told me, “If the enemy can’t get your foot to apply the brakes, he’ll jam it down on the accelerator.”
Honestly? I think this is one of the cleverest schemes of the enemy of our souls.
Think about it:
- When you’re exhausted you’re short-tempered and hard to get along with.
- When you keep adding more to your “lists” you never see “The End,” you just keep running and running, with no end in sight.
- When you refuse to value the habit of “Sabbath rest” you tell God you know better than He does.
- You leave yourself wide open to illness, and even worse, total collapse from exhaustion.
So, why do I do it?
Valuing work above everything
Isn’t this the real truth? That as a society, we have come to value work and productivity above everything else?
I remember when I worked for one of the world’s largest wineries. I worked in a department called, Production Scheduling. It was our job to coordinate the wine bottling schedules to the bottling room, the cellar, where the wine was made, the glass plant where all the bottles were manufactured, and the warehouse where everything was eventually shipped. A few other departments fed into all of that, but what I remember most, was how everything ran off the tracks if a bottling line in that bottling room stopped running for any reason.
Production was god in that place!
Who is God in my life?
This COVID thing has really brought things to a screeching halt for many of us.
It certainly has made me take a hard look at who is really “in charge” of my days.
If God is sovereign over my life–then He is also sovereign over all of my plans.
Jeremiah reminds me,
This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.
Jeremiah 29:10-11 the message
A timely reminder
Just when I am really starting to feel restless again, and impatient to “get life going” again, God, via Brian Simmons recent devotional, sent me a timely reminder:
Beloved, I see your restlessness to make things happen. I love your excitement, but I must warn you against striving to do things in your own strength. Walking in my will releases my grace. Remaining in my timing and trusting me to open doors is the only way you are going to fulfill your true destiny. You cannot force my hand. You must not fight so hard to see my will come to pass that you actually step out of my timing and grace.
I’m asking you to trust me with your plans. Make them, but then release them to me in total trust and confidence. Pay attention to the gentle nudges as I direct you to the right people and places. Don’t ignore those spontaneous, random ideas that spark inside you–often, they are the keys you need for the next step of your journey. I love your excitement, but we are in this together. Trust me. My wisdom will lead you; you only need to ask and believe.
Whispers, “Trust Me With Your Plans” by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez
Turning over my planner, Amen?
I often have to be reminded that rest is an essential pre-requisite to seeing the dry bones in my life dance.
(Amen?)
Yeah, me too.
Let’s all let our Shepherd set the pace, and then, follow Him.
Women With Destiny 