Slowing Down

The season of life I have been in has been so hectic and so many things have been happening. Change after change has occurred and I came to a breaking point where I could no longer do it all, as I felt I had been for years. As the wave began crashing, I had a choice; either continue trying to do everything and let the water keep me under so I continued to feel like I was suffocating, or slow down and take a breath of fresh air for once in what feels like forever. I chose to take in the air--and boy, did it feel good. 

I know as a human, but especially as a woman, I find satisfaction in replying to the question, 

"How are you?" 

with 

"Busy, busy, busy!" 

We find identification and fulfillment with looking at our schedules and seeing that there is no free time. It makes us (at least me.. I hope I'm not alone) feel like we are important and doing things with our lives and for the kingdom. What I have come to realize is that I can do nothing for the kingdom if I'm not finding my identity in Christ or taking time to take care of myself.

I have been going to school full time, doing 15+ hours of volunteer work a week and working 40+ hours a week for the last 2 years...and just in the last few months I have decided to cut back. I was finding my identity in being able to do 'everything.' 

In order to be the best student, volunteer, employee and friend I can be, I have to take time to find myself through spending time with Jesus and dwelling in his love. Slowing down doesn't make us lazy, or purposeless. It shows initiative that you know you have purpose in Christ and are unable to further the kingdom or be there for others if you aren't first taking care of yourself (find a way to relax and focus on yourself and Jesus) and leaving room for God to work through your schedule. For me, I have found I love laying in the sun, being reflective and reflexive on what is going on in my life and how I can better incorporate the Truth into my day-to-day routine. 

Over the last few months of doing this, I have noticed a couple of things:

1) God surprises me with new things everyday 

While I am spending time praying, in his word, journaling etc--I learn something new. Something that before I would have been too busy to notice or too busy to even be doing those initial acts of worship in the first place. 
In addition, every day is a new adventure. I never know what my weeks will look like, where before it was almost always the same. I am loving it. 

2) I am more available for God and his people 

I don't have to schedule 'hang-out' time 3 weeks in advance. I'm not tied down to being everywhere at once. When God needs me in a situation, I am able to be there. I am allowing the spirit to work through my life by not always being on a tight, tight schedule. 

It's (I'm) still a work in process.. but I have been able to consider things for my present and future while reflecting on my past so much. Through this time, I hope the Holy Spirit is able to move through me and begin to mold me into the young woman I am called to be. There is nothing I can to do shape this, besides allow him to work in me. That is my goal with this process. I hope and pray you can do the same.

  Let Jesus in. Leave time for him. Allow him to move through and mold you. 

-M.P.

Surreder

A word I combat with on a daily basis. 

The act of submitting to an authority.

A move that God calls us to do consistently. 

Surrender. 

As I move through the season of life I am in, I have noticed a few things. First, I am incapable of doing anything on my own. Second, human nature causes me to want to do everything on my own. Finally, in order to do all things in life, it is necessary that we hand them over to God. 

Surrender can happen in a variety of areas in our lives; schooling, work, volunteer work, personal health so on and so forth. However, where I have noticed surrender to be fully necessary in my life lately, and maybe some of you can relate, is through relationships. As followers of Christ, we are called to be in community and love one another as Christ loves us. Romans 12: 4-6 says, 

"For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith" (NIV)

The message version is my favorite. 

"In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts of Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves to one another , or trying to be something we aren't."

1 John 4:11,

"Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (NIV)

1 Peter 3:8,

"Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble." (NIV)

As I meditate on this verses, I think, 

"Wow God.. these are some big pursuits you have given us." 

How are we ever supposed to live up to this? 

In Matthew 16: 24-25 says to his disciples,

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." (NIV)

Mark 10: 27 Jesus said, 

"With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." (NIV)

" No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it." (MSG)

I go back to my original thought about God giving us some big pursuits. I stand by that thought.. God has given us a huge job in telling us to love our neighbors and live in community. For me, I find it easy to want to live in community and want to love those I am in relationship with the way Jesus loves us. 

However, when I try to live these actions out on my own.. I end up feeling hurt, alone and angry. 

In the last few months I have lost several friendships, struggled to keep a relationship afloat and become very angry in the fact that I am trying to live like Christ and am not seeing any difference in my life. Well, as I write these words, it sinks in that I need to stop trying so much and start trusting much more. This is something I have grown up knowing I need to do, but knowing something and living it out are two separate entities. 

I have surrendered to Christ in the past. Like many of you probably have, I said a prayer giving my relationships to Christ. I asked him to live through me but, the more time I spend with God, the more I realize I missed a huge part of this process. We are not asked to surrender to God once and then we are finished. Surrendering to God is a daily operation in which we ask him to take part of the friendship or relationship that is falling apart or ask him to live through you when you encounter the leader you struggling to respect.  In addition, he asks us to give him the praise when a relationship or friendship is going really well. We offer him all praises, giving the good, bad and ugly of our lives. We are all a different part of the body of Christ, and therefore will struggle with different things when it comes to relationships and loving one another. With the help of God and our ability to surrender to him, we can overcome these struggles. 

We are called to love others and live in community. We are also called to surrender fully and completely to Christ. In seeking to give Christ-like love and live in Christ-like community, let's surrender. Let's stop trying to do everything on our own and dwell in the fact that we have a father who wants to guide and support us. 

That 'One Thing'

2016 has been one of the most difficult years of my life thus far. I have been having this internal fight with God over the one big thing in my life I refuse to let him have. We all have that one thing, right? That thing that we can’t imagine letting God have—for whatever reason. In my life, my ‘one thing’ (lets be honest, we all probably have more than one thing...) is control. As many of you know, I am one of the most type A people you will ever meet. I took a personality test last weekend and my results came out as, ISTJ. If you are like me, you have no idea what that means. After reading over the results the test gave me, I learned I = Introverted, S = Sensor, T = Thinker and J = Judger. This particular personality test gave me a percentage of each tendency and defined them for me.

Introverted refers to my emotional focus. I am 53% introverted versus 47% extroverted.

Sensor refers to the way in which I gather information. I am 60% sensor versus 40% intuitive. Words that often describe sensors are patient (hah!), careful, precise, diligent, realistic and practical.

Thinker refers to how I make decisions. I am 53% thinker versus 47% feeler. Thinkers tend to be analytical, logical, rational, objective and fair.

Thus far, the results of my personality test did not surprise me. It wasn’t until I got to the final tendency that I thought…”whoa.” Judger refers to my temporal and structural orientation. The options are being a judger versus being a perceiver. Judgers tend to be organized, controlled and decisive whereas perceivers tend to be spontaneous, impulsive and adaptive. As the results stated, “more so than in any of the other three personality dimensions, people usually exhibit a bit of both sides of this dyad.” After reading that, I figured I would look at my results and be maybe 70% judger and 30% perceiver. What I found was that I was 100% judger and 0% perceiver. “What? Seriously? That can’t be right, the test just said most people show aspects of both judgers and perceivers!” is what I thought originally. However, after re-reading the page and description for a judger, I found I completely agreed with the results, no matter how much I hated it. The adjectives the results used to describe judgers are: decisive, organized, resolute, strict, sensible, in control, prudent and judicious. At face value, those words make me cringe because they are everything I am and everything I don’t want to be. Growing up, I always hoped to be the type of adult who lived life to her own tune and enjoyed spontaneous, impulsive decisions.

Going back to the continued internal fight I have been having with God, I realize my personality type and this whole ‘judger’ thing matches up perfectly to the struggle I am experiencing. To be honest with you, I LOVE control. I love being in charge, planning, teaching and structure. I am still formulating my thoughts on this subject, but I am coming to the conclusion that being 100% judger is not bad, however, it can be detrimental when left out of check. By that I mean ignoring God & shutting him out of having any control in life. It sounds so easy when I type it out to say, "okay God, I give you control," but if I am being honest… it is one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  Controlling my life, situations and even people around me is something that feels like it is in my DNA, which is why it is so difficult to fix. I have heard before that if you let him, God will change the way you think and make decisions. That is what I am dealing with right now. I have never experienced this kind of change before, so I just keep praying that God will work inside of me & everyday I wake-up and am conscious of the fact that God is in control, not me. My personality is not bad--I just can't let it (for the lack of a better word), control me. 

I hope I am not the only one who struggles with this, so my question for you is, what is the ‘one thing’ that sticks out in your mind as you read this blog post that you refuse to let God have? Why? What would happen if you handed it over to him? It is so scary, I understand that more than anyone, but I challenge you to face the ‘one thing’ you are thinking of right now, and simply consider giving it to God. I have faith it will be worth it in the end for all of us.  :) 

-MP