There I was caught in the temptation to make something bigger than it really was. Chaos was all around me in my mind, in the environment. Knocking on all doors to seep into my heart and take away my established peace. I had found myself feeling dry and spread thin, getting pulled on all sides. Ever felt that way? Everything seems bigger than it should be because my peace is lower than what it’s supposed to be.

I am sure many can raise their hands to feeling the exact way I have described above. It can come at any moment of the day. No one is immune to these types of moments. Where can we go to look for how to respond to those moments that so easily creep up.

There I was running around feeling like everything was an emergency that demanded my all in that moment. I would come back to the house I was staying at looking like I just ran a marathon. If I had been in America I would have jumped in a hot bath with bubbles just so that I could feel like a child again. Adulting, it is all you knew you wanted when you were a teenager that wanted to drive and be legal to have choices about your actions, yet it’s all the things you never saw as well. This isn’t a blog about adulting. I am just reminded that God tell us to have child-like faith. Over and over we hear “fear not”, some say over 365 times in the new testament, I can’t say that I have counted them, but I am cool with sharing what other people counted. The point is in the moments we feel overwhelmed and are tempted to make it bigger than it is, we have been given the truth of the matter. I know that facts can feel different than the truth. The whole world can scream facts at you and they will feel real. Truth doesn’t always feel real but that is why it is essential to renew our minds and place them back on the source of this life we are living. Just because it feels real doesn’t make it the truth!

Let us go back to our ultimate example. Jesus. So often, I will refer to feeling like Peter when I’m wavering or on a spiritual day, I will feel like Paul. Yet they are told the same thing as we are told. We are to follow Christ and Him alone. He is to be the one we look at for all reasons and things. No one was perfect like Christ and quite frankly I can relate to Peter but I must take it further and realize that Jesus was the one who called Him so even the lives of disciples all point to the truth that I am to follow Christ.

There are many stories I could share about Jesus and his ability to not live in a constant “state of emergency”. How many of you have read the story about Lazarus being raised from the dead? Let me break it down for you. Lazarus was Mary and Martha’s brother. Mary and Martha are often talked about all over the gospels. They are also heard about one being a busy-body and the other sitting at Jesus’s feet. They are what I would call the family of Jesus in the way I call my best friend’s family my own. They sent a message to Jesus in a different town that his dear friend was sick. When Jesus heard this he said ” Lazarus’s sickness won’t end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” So although Jesus loved these close friends, he chose to stay where he was for 2 more days. He was told by his disciples to remember that He was getting stoned last time He was in Judea (where the family was),  Jesus (like a boss) says “let’s go”. Jesus arrives there to find that Lazarus’s body had been in the grave for 4 days! They rushed to Jesus with many things to say like “this wouldn’t have happened if you would have been here. yet now that you are here I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him”. Jesus tells her “your brother will rise again.”

I won’t give spoilers as to the outcome of this story, but it shouldn’t be treated as common or as if it were only for those days, when He says he is the same yesterday, today and forever!
Please make your way to read the whole story in John 11

I read this portion of scripture and it provokes me so much to live the way Jesus has shown me. I would have been in the ultimate panic mode, to be honest. If I got a letter (or a text) about one of my best friends being sick, you better know that I would be doing something about it. I would allow myself to go into a state of emergency mode. It would consume my thoughts and my actions essentially. I read this over and over and my mind is blown at Jesus. If there is a story I would allow myself the moment to freak out, it would be this one. I hold friends and family so dear and close that I would have packed my bags and said alright people we are moving out! I may have sounded peaceful but it would have been covering up all the fear that would be exploding inside of me. I would have handled this extremely different.

It has been exposing my heart so much as I can’t seem to quite move on to the next thing or move into a new passage. I so desire to be in tune with the Father that I am walking in step with Him. We know that Jesus would look to his Father and see what Heaven was doing and follow that. I want to get there. I want to not feel like there are moments in which I allow myself the luxury of freaking out and making it a bigger deal than it is. I long to look up and see how Heaven desires for me to respond to situations. It doesn’t matter the type or depth of the situation I want to look up first and then I want to look around and respond like I was made to, like Jesus.

I know that this has the potential to have backbite with it. It could provoke you to think wrong thoughts about our Saviour. It could make you think that Jesus was willing to let his friend die and etc. Trust me, I have wrestled so much of this out within myself. I have let it hit my heart and expose the places that I have inside of me that aren’t trusting God and want to question him or blame him. Much like Martha, I want to respond “Jesus if you were here this wouldn’t have even happened.” I see these places in me that cry out and then respond when I don’t like the outcome. I must place my trust in that He knows what He is doing. He is always doing what will give himself glory. I am not telling you that sickness will give him glory. The healing of that sickness will for sure give him glory. I know that many people blame God for things they are mad or disappointed about. It is easy to pass off the blame onto Him, to question his goodness and his ways and even his love. Why is that easy? Well, that will have to be a different blog. I do know that because we have tolerated a “state of emergency” in our lives when we feel like God is way behind the time-line we have set up for him to work in, we begin to easily doubt him and question him by taking things into our own hands. This is a place we all live in or have lived in before. I am not perfect at this at all, but I am seeking to be made more into the image of Jesus. He was always about the Father’s business and right on time! The coolest thing that blows my mind is that after his death he made a way to live in our hearts. The word says that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us!!!! That is good news! This makes me have hope for the world. It presses me into thinking that If I would just look to heaven and see what God is up to and follow Him here I would see some amazing things happen. It may look late to some but it could be right on time for the Kingdom.

We oftentimes read scripture to say we spend time with God by reading his word, out of obligation. We are to read the word, even if its just one scripture, and let it read us allowing us to take on more of Him. The bible is the only book that will read you if you let it. It has to power to change your life.

I combat this by trying to: (with grace)

1- I ask God who I can share with. I tend to want everyone involved and feel like the more people that pray the better. As if God needs to hear hundreds of people to get my point across.

2- I ask God his heart on the situation. I usually have to do this over and over and write it down to remind myself. I can easily be swayed by the facts around me rather than let the truth set me free about situations. His heart is always kind and never leaves anyone out. He is after all hearts!

3- I place my trust in Him knowing that He is trustworthy regardless of how I think he should handle anything. I physically will hand it over to him as I visualize his hands taking it. I wasn’t made to carry the pressure of this life on my shoulders. So He is constantly telling me to hand it to him.

4-Worship- I will worship. I allow praise to come from my heart. Many will wait to worship after they see fruit from Him but the more you grow the more you realize that worship is a key to victory and it keeps you steadfast in him instead of being tossed to and fro. Worshiping Him is a great weapon to always use!

Just because it feels late to you doesn’t mean it’s late to God.

Let me know what you do to guard yourself against the ultimate freak outmodes-

 

Shay