More coffee please...

Some days are an effort of the will.  Keep moving forward.  Don't give up.  Don't be lazy.  This morning in the One Year Bible reading, the Proverbs talked about the ant.  The ant doesn't need anyone to tell it to keep working.  If it doesn't then it dies.  Moral of the story: don't be lazy.  Well that was a bit of a spiritual spankin' today....you see I'm feeling a bit like this:

More coffee please.

I honestly have been feeling pretty yucky for the past week and a half.  I get this inner pH imbalance thing that gives me an internal infection if I don't eat like lettuce only (okay I'm exaggerating but I'm kinda cranky...sorry about that...) and that's been acting up (thank you birthday cake).  So I've been running a fever for a week and a half.  That just drains you, ya know.  But dude, life goes on!  I'll admit it's been a bit difficult to not throw myself a pity party (especially right after I burned my hand on a hot pan this morning...or when my oven caught fire on Saturday and wont get fixed until next week sometime...or when...oh wait...about that pity party I said I wasn't going to throw...I think I just did...dude!  Sorry about that, too...) but God's word is so sweet even when it stings!  Don't be lazy!

 Life keeps rolling so we do too, right?  RIGHT?!?

Sometimes I want to curl up in a ball and just go ahead and cry (when I burned my hand I did just that...) but we have to choose to LOOK UP.  Jesus has a good plan for my life so I need to put away my whiney pants and be a big girl and choose to look up into His face!  He will lift me up!  He will give me joy.  He will give me endurance!  He will provide for my every need! (everytime I get worried about money He just ROCKS IT cause He is gnarly cool like that! just want to throw that out there because not once have we not had what we need.  NOT ONCE.  He's for real about being a Provider.) I just have to look up at Him!  But that means that I also have to (ahem) look away from what is difficult.  Look away from my fevered and achy body and LOOK UP into His glorious face.  Look away from the stack of bills and LOOK UP into His powerful and able arms.  Look away from even the mounds of laundry and cleaning to be done and LOOK UP into His compassionate and caring face.  I need to look away from the deepest hurts and cares that I carry around with me and LOOK UP at a capable, loving, redeeming, rescuing, compassionate, caring, ABLE GOD.   As I do that, nothing changes.  BUT EVERYTHING CHANGES!  My fog of fatigue is lifted.  My joy suddenly abounds.  I can see from His perspective and everything in light of eternity is fleeting and unimportant.  My laundry and housecleaning are now a holy privilege done unto the Lord and I'm ready to put a podcast on and knock that out.  Don't believe that it's that simple?  Try it out and see...you won't be mad at me when you're done.

I really hope that I don't sound like I am complaining about my petty struggles as I write this out for the world to see.  I know my life is a cake walk and I truly am not trying to make it sound otherwise.  So I have this issue with fevers...so what???....it's not cancer...my babies are well...in fact I have a great hubs and an even better God...great friends...my life is SWEET.  And I am not just reminding myself apart from feeling.  I really do FEEL that way.  But I think regardless of the circumstances of life...whether we are super great or really in our most desperate circumstance ever...the temptation is there to BE LAZY mentally.  Not sure if I am making sense (my brain is a bit fuzzy) but I think it's like this.  If we are lazy in our minds...if we don't make the choice to constantly choose God's truth as the wallpaper of our mind then our flesh and the enemy of our souls will come in and fill the walls of our minds with YUCK.  Self-pity and self-focus and bogs of mire and old easter eggs from last year live there.  Isn't that a great word picture...bleck.  Once I hid easter eggs in my room...I was like 8...don't judge me.  It took my dad a few weeks to figure out what was killing our house with such a nasty smell.  I was definitely in trouble for that!

  Our ugly self-centered thoughts are like that.  They hide behind the dresser or in the back of closet...hidden to the eyes but sickeningly disgusting to your nose and every nose that comes near.  We have to make choices (I am preaching at myself here).  I have to choose to put up God's truth as the wall paper of my mind.  I make that choice by reading His word...listening to great teaching...teaching my kids so they can quote it back to me and convict me so completely...by whatever He says to do that moment that day.  I don't earn the joy He gives.  That's His and He freely offers it to me through the blood of Jesus Christ.  I don't earn a better perspective.  I don't earn a right heart or money to buy milk or anything good in my life.  They are His gifts.  Gifts cannot be earned.  I simply have to make the choice to LOOK UP at Him.  I have to choose to wallpaper my mind with His truth.  Wanna know my favorite truth right now?

His grace is sufficient...I could talk for days about that one.  I'm just choosing to meditate on that right now.  There's so much goodness in there!!!!

So my house will be sanitary but not necessarily gorgeous.  My laundry might be wrinkly but it will be done.  My face wont see make up but I promise you that Jesus still loves me.  MY list doesn't have to get done to fulfill the command to not be lazy.  Just His list needs to be heeded.  Put away the whiney pants, be a big girl, and LOOK UP today.  That's the only thing He has on His list for my day and I am excited to see that worked out!