So I have been thinking a lot about what it means to lean on the Lord. What it means to use His strength, His power….rather than doing it alone, relying on myself rather than on Him.
The past few weeks, months...ok year...has been full of struggles and stress. And as a person with anxiety it doesn’t often take much for me to spiral. I can usually tell when it starts, when I start feeling a bit off. I push through….”I’ve got this. I’m ok.” Then I begin with some standard techniques of grounding and stress management. And then I eat. Comfort food brings me great comfort.
I try to manage it all on my own power. But after a bit, it just isn’t enough and I realize that I cannot do it alone. So then I call out to the Lord…
“Father….Abba! Help me! The world has gone mad and so I have!”
I pray, I worship, and He makes it all better. His strength. Not mine. Sure, I can do it too. I can avoid triggers and I have learned how to manage stress. But when the job is a bit tougher..one those big bad days/weeks...I need help. I need His help.
So after I called for help the last time, I began really considering it. And then this image popped into my head. It really just explained it all so perfectly. Just summed it right. It was the best illustration of how it really works...us and Him and our strength and His strength.
Do you remember being a child and wanting to do something all by yourself? Maybe you were in the kitchen and you wanted to make cookies like a big kid, all by yourself. And you tried but eventually your mother would come over and help you crack the eggs without shells going in, mix the dough without flour going everywhere, and of course, clean up the mess you made trying to do it alone.
Or maybe you saw Dad in the garage building shelves and you insisted on helping...or even doing it yourself. And you really tried but before you could hurt yourself with the power saw, your father came over and guided the wood for you. He held the nail for you so you could hammer it in without smashing your fingers.
Perhaps you were in your first apartment and wanted to enjoy your independence, no matter what. So, when the toilet flooded, rather than calling for help, you desperately tried to fix it on your own. Of course, you only made things worse so you reluctantly called home to have dad come over.
It would have been so much quicker if mom made the cookies alone. It would have been easier for dad to have built the shelves by himself. The bathroom wouldn’t have flooded completely had you called someone right away to help.
Well, that’s how it is with God. We are like little kids, trying to do it all by ourselves. And He lets us. Sure enough, we can’t so He comes in, helps us, guides, us, protects us, and helps us clean up the mess we made. Because we can’t do it alone. We need His power, His strength, His guidance, His protection.
When we try on our own, it is so much harder. There have been so many times when I’m working on something and struggling like crazy to make it work. It will be like trying to force a square into a circle. It just doesn’t work. And the more I struggle, the harder it gets, the more stuck I get. It just gets so frustrating. I can’t make it work. I drive myself crazy, becoming more and more frustrated. But sure enough, when I stop and ask for His guidance, His help, it just goes so much smoother. And when I have enough sense to ask before I start? Well, now that’s a game changer.
It’s not weakness when we lean on the Lord, when we need his strength. His power is so much more than that. It’s not like we are struggling to open the pickle jar and He takes it and opens it for us without any effort (although that would be helpful). No, we are going so much beyond our human strength, our human abilities and tapping into His supernatural strength. When we invite Him into our lives and cry out to Him for help, we are given such power to get through what others can’t. We can do the impossible for humans but the possible with God. We can endure so much more, feel so much more, and do so much more with Him guiding us.
So, I am crying out for Him now.....
Abba, help us. Help us endure the madness that is going on around us. Give us the strength to do what we need to do, what you want us to do. Give us the wisdom to know what to say and when to say it. Give us such utter peace in the midst of the insanity around us. May you guide our steps and actions so that we may help others, love each other, and grow your kingdom. Abba, protect us from the evils of this world, from the battles that are all around us and within us. Abba, I need you now and for all of my days.
Amen.....
Keep finding the light.....
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