Category: Wisdom Wednesday

I feel like, lately, everyone is busy.  And all the busy people have advice on how not to be busy.  The #1 best-selling advice is simple: stop doing so much.  But is it really that simple when you have to put in overtime at work, when you want to invest time in healthy meals for your family instead of going to get fast food, when your house looks like a tornado blow through it, when you miss your husband because you’ve both been so busy you haven’t had a full conversation in days, when your extended family and friends are asking where you’ve been, and when the minute you actually have some free time you feel guilty doing nothing because of all the voices screaming for your attention?  Did I even mention the self-care that I must do: the time I spend with God in the morning, the 30-minute workout, journaling, doing tasks that fill me instead of drain me, eating healthy, sleeping early, drinking water at the right time (yep, that’s a thing apparently), and breathing?

In my blog, I’ve tried to be as real as possible.  I read the works of writers who have overcome all kinds of raw emotions, and I want to follow their example and pour my heart out for the world to see.  But if you asked me how I was really feeling, this is what I would tell you: I have no idea, because I’ve been too busy to sit down and actually contemplate what’s within my heart.  What’s new?  I have no idea, because everything is new.  Where do I even start?  My head is almost always spinning, and all I want is to take a giant remote, press the “pause” button, and take a nap.

To be quite honest, I want a change in my life.  I’ve been busy for about three years straight, and I’m done with being exhausted and stressed.  I’m sick of always having something to do, and never feeling like I get anything done.  Worst of all, I am frustrated because I’ve heard over and over again that God does not want us to get addicted to busyness, and yet I feel I have no choice but to jump into the current and let it take me into the chaos.

How many of you can resonate with that?

I wish the answer could be as simple as “stop doing everything.”  But life does not come with a “pause” button.  Life is coming at us fast, and all we have time to do is reflexively react to our environment.

The truth is: we all have a motivation to be busy.  There are reasons, positive and negative, why we are attracted to the busy lifestyle.  In order to “stop doing everything,” we must develop the motivation to pause, breathe, and develop a rhythm of rest.  As with most things, rest starts in the mind and the heart.

If you are like me and are tired of running around, I have one question for you: How badly do you want rest?

Over the next few weeks, I will be trying to process what motivates me to be busy.  I will be sorting through both the positive and the negative reasons that I’m attracted to the busy lifestyle.  Each week, I will give you a challenge.  You can comment on each week’s post to respond to each challenge, or you can simply contemplate it in your own way.

This week, I would like you to think about the reasons why your life is busy.  Identify whether each reason is good or bad, and why.

Here are my motivations to be busy to give you some ideas, and I will expand on these ideas throughout the week:

1. God is calling me to rely on Him
2. I’m in a transitional stage of life
3. I don’t like to say “no”
4. I like to say “yes”
5. I want to avoid conflict
6. I want to avoid myself
7. I don’t want to miss out
8. I’m afraid of failure

Join me in developing a rhythm of rest instead of a life of busyness.

“Oh, just you wait.  Things will get worse.  Trust me.”

If I could sum up the words that have been spoken over my generation in the recent months, it would be these three sentences. I’d never thought that just three short years after my graduation, my dreams would be attacked so much.

In my last few weeks of college, my classmates, professors, and mentors poured courage, peace, and strength into my heart.  Their message was clear and it was good: “God has great plans for you.”  I fully believe it then, and I fully believe it now.  My college friends encouraged my hopes of traveling the world and meeting people from various cultures.  They pushed me to use my gift of and passion for writing (even when I didn’t want to admit that my dream was to be a writer).  They noticed my joy and guided me to live with the joy of the Lord as my strength.  They walked with me through my raw emotions; they accepted me for who I was, but they loved me too much to let me stay there.  Because I was surrounded by encouragement, love, and support for four years, I thought my time in college would prepare me for a lifetime of constant encouragement, love, and support from the world.

Within a few months after graduating, I learned the harsh reality that the world is actually cheering for my failure.  In a world where comparison prevents us from celebrating along with other people, where statistics scream in our faces that we will never be successful, and where people’s interests and obsessions change in the blink of an eye…it is so easy for us to believe that there is no point in fighting for success, because in the end, it won’t matter anyway.

For those of us who are looking for approval from anyone other than God, we are looking in the wrong place.  We have big dreams, but people are jealous of our success and want to rob us of our joy.  We want to go places, but the media portrays the world as a scary place, and tells us that we should just stay in our warm cubby holes and talk to people within our comfort levels.  We want to be the talk of the town, but even that video that went viral became old news within a week.  We want to fight for ourselves to matter, but in the end, the world shoves it in our face that we don’t.  So…what’s the point?

The point is: when we live for the world, we mean nothing, but when we live for God, our legacy will last for eternity.  God is happy to see us succeed, especially when we surrender our lives to Him.  He is not jealous of us, but jealous for us; He does not compete with us, but in His perfect will He orchestrates all things to work together for good…and He wants you to be a part of His plan.  God knows the statistics of this world, but He can do the impossible; the God who fed over five thousand people with five loaves and two fish can take your hopeless, implausible dreams and use them to change the world.  And while the interests of this world are fleeting, God’s attention is always on you; He never leaves you or forsakes you.

It would be absolutely wrong to say that I haven’t received any encouragement after graduating college (or even that college was void of any discouragement).  But I must say that the world is harsh.  While it is said that there is a 50/50 chance of a marriage flourishing or failing, why would anyone want to tell a newly married couple that is enjoying marriage to just give it a few years until they are sick of each other?  After a college graduate spends four years and tens of thousands of dollars pursuing a degree that she enjoys, why would anyone want to tell her that she’ll never get a decent job with her head in the clouds?  In the confusion of our politics today, why would anyone tell a young person who has been studying current events that his political views are illogical and that he will never understand?

I can’t control the world around me, but I can control how I respond.  I was inspired to write this post to encourage millennials, as I have heard many people from other generations talk down to us as if we will never be successful until they conform to the standards of the “older people.”  But I believe that this message can encourage others  who have big dreams that have been squashed by their peers.  I don’t seek to bash anyone, but rather to encourage the people who have lost their hope.

I speak to my generation, the millennials, the young folks, the kids who apparently aren’t quite adults but are definitely not kids.  This is my message to you: Do not give up.  Rise against the negative voices that have been spoken to you.  Life will not be easy, but things do not have get worse.  Enjoy the season you are in now.  Use the strengths that God has given you now.  Do not wait until things get better.  Do not be afraid of things getting worse.  Life is a process, and you will figure it out.

Above all, know that God is cheering you on.  The same God who will never leave you or forsake you inspired Paul to write these words to Timothy: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).  May this verse sink deep into your heart and encourage you to persevere in the midst of hopelessness.

According to this world, things will only get worse, but according to God’s Word, there is hope even in the tough times.  God has great plans for you, but it involves trusting Him and putting your faith into action.  Be encouraged: you are not doomed to a life of failure, but you are promised a life of hope and faith when you commit to follow God’s plan for you.

These past few weeks have been emotionally draining.  As a result, I’ve been short-tempered, I’ve shed a few tears, and I’ve shut down on a few occasions.  As one who enjoys analyzing my feelings, I have been trying to figure out why I’ve been like this.  I’m a generally upbeat and positive person, so for me to express feelings of apathy and irritation is quite uncommon.

I was sort of going through the motions until a guy cut me off on the way home the other day.  I’d given him the signal that I was changing into the left lane, and since he slowed down, I figured he was letting me cut in front of him.  As soon as I made it into the left lane, however, he suddenly honked the horn at me, swerved around me, stopped quickly enough to ask me “WTF (spelled out) is your problem?”, and then proceeded to cut in front of me.  As if he could hear me (or even care that I had an answer), I shouted back, “I was trying to turn left to get onto the parkway, but then you decided to change your mind and almost get both of us into an accident!”  I realized in that moment that there was no reasoning with a guy as angry and irresponsible as him, especially since he was already out of earshot.  I spent the twenty-minute car ride angry that someone would treat me like a roadblock, like an object that was simply in the way.  I impatiently stopped at every light, desiring more than anything just to make it home.  I was spent, I was finished, I was…empty.

In the busyness of this life, it is easy to believe that we are filled.  We turn down plans because we have such a full schedule that we cannot bear to have just one more hour-long activity tacked onto our week.  We roll our eyes at the mounds of dirty dishes and the mountain of laundry waiting to be cleaned, because our living space is full of our possessions (especially when you’re living with a spouse and you both brought items from your childhood into your tiny apartment and you have nowhere to put anything).  We grab our phones because it our message inbox is full, and we need to contact our friends. We eat so much, that we are full for about an hour, but then we indulge in even more food.  But when we stop to think about it, what is our life filled with?  Stuff.  Not things.  Stuff.  A disarray of unnameable items that don’t have a distinct category.  Everything (friends, family, time, ministry, work, possessions, marriage) all ends up in one pile of stuff.  And when we don’t deal with the way this stuff affects us, it creates stuff in our hearts: bitterness, anger, greed, and insecurities.

You see, the problem with the driver was that he brought up stuff in my heart.  He brought up my insecurity about driving, my inability to stick up for myself, and ultimately, my insecurity of not being good enough.  This is stuff that I had buried deep within my heart, that I could not deal with because of my other stuff: my busyness, my responsibilities, and my lack of energy.

I wrote this post because, quite honestly, I’ve dealt with a lot of stuff already.  I’ve prayed and grieved through many circumstances that have happened in my life as well as sins that I have committed.  I’ve asked for forgiveness from God and others for past mistakes, and I have accepted forgiveness for what others have done to me.

So…where is this other stuff coming from?  Was it always there?  Did I not pray hard enough when I prayed to get rid of that stuff in the first place?

Jesus taught His disciples about keeping our souls free from stuff.  In Luke 11, Jesus explains that when an unclean spirit leaves someone, the spirit looks for another place to go.  When it doesn’t find any place, it goes back to the person it left.  If the spirit finds the place clean and tidy, he will go in and call several others to dwell there with him (see vv 24-26).  We think that we have to clean up our lives in order to be free from sin.  The reality is, we just need to be filled.

God uses trials and various circumstances to reveal to us what is truly in our hearts.  When I thought God was revealing my lack of forgiveness or my insecurity, He was revealing something much deeper…

He was revealing that at the depth of my core, I am an empty cup just waiting to be filled.

The Bible describes humans as vessels, containers that are meant to be filled, that are meant to contain something.  That’s why we strive to be filled, since we are aware that there is an emptiness deep within our soul.  But God is not the only one that can fill us.  We can also be filled with junk.  We can be filled with the greed of this world, with complaining, with habitual sin, and with overindulgence.  Just because we are filled does not mean we are content.  The Holy Spirit is the only “soul-filler” that can truly satisfy; the other things we chase simply leave us empty after a while.

The events, people, and attitudes we encounter may seem good, but if God has not called you to them, they just become white noise in the background of your crazy life.

My week is typically filled with laundry, washing dishes, working 9-5, food shopping, women’s conferences, church meetings, catching up with friends, eating dinner with family, and lots and lots of driving.  I used to look forward to the weekend because that’s when I would get a break.  Now I’m just praying for a break to show up somewhere!

My attitude this week reminded me that I need to cut back from some of the stuff that I have on my plate.  This week, I am making a conscious effort to pray about where God is leading me.  That may involve making my schedule more empty.  That may involve making my friends list a little more scarce.  That may involve simply developing a more eternal perspective on the tasks God has given me.  That may even involve taking part in different activities that I enjoy, instead of activities that drain me.  Whatever happens, removing the stuff from my life will allow more room for God to move in my life.

What is the stuff in your life?  I challenge you to take time each day this week to do a heart check.  Is there an area in your life where you are feeling dissatisfied?  Ask God what you need to surrender to Him.  Is there an attitude, a sin, unresolved conflict, or unforgiveness that you have been storing in your heart?  Be honest with God about how you feel (even if you have to confess that you don’t want to change your behavior, deal with the conflict, or forgive the one who hurt you).  Giving up the stuff in your life will be risky and very possibly uncomfortable, but when you finally let go, that is when God can fill you with His ever-satisfying love, peace, and grace.

Every Easter, a different aspect of the story stands out.  It’s as if everything I read, every word spoken by a pastor, and every conversation I have with others come together and speak a message that God wants me to reflect on each year.  This Easter season, I realized a lesson that is so important for this generation…

Silence is golden.

In the world today, people are fighting to let others know their opinions.  When people don’t get their way, they will scream and shout until everyone is practically throwing things at them to get them to shut up.  Two people can be talking at each other without having a conversation. All that matters today is being heard.  As it is said, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  The one who does the most complaining, and the most explaining, will be the one who gets attention, and who ultimately gets what he or she wants.

But that’s not the way that Jesus left this Earth.  You see, Jesus had all the power in the world to do whatever He wanted.  When the rulers of the law hurled insults at Him, Jesus had the wisdom to know how to defend Himself.  He could have used His words to hail thousands of angels to come to His side and destroy any accusation made against Him.  But the mode of attack that Jesus chose to use…was silence.

Our Savior, on the day He could have glorified God by showing the world His power, putting to death any form of doubt, opted not to fight back.  He opted to glorify God by doing what we least expected.  He gave darkness five minutes of fame.  All along, Jesus knew that His power would overcome, so He didn’t have to defend Himself against His mockers.  He already knew that it was impossible for them to kill Him, so He willingly let them give it their best effort to try.

In a world that is screaming at us for attention, we must find a way to disconnect for a few minutes and recollect our thoughts.  In a society that makes it difficult to keep up, we must find a way to be content with our current situation for just a few minutes, instead of starving for something different.  In a place where the one who yells the loudest gets the biggest prize, we must find a way to listen to the faint whispers of those who have a message we need to hear.

Those who are truly powerful don’t have to prove their power.  They just have to be themselves.  Instead of trying to prove ourselves with our words, let’s allow our actions to speak for us.

Easter.  A holiday where the only consistent memory I have is putting on a pretty new dress, piling into the car with my family, and sitting in a crowded church ready to hear the story yet again.  This story changed the world, one desperate heart at a time.  This story made me cry for days after seeing it reenacted on stage.  This story begs the question: If this happened during my lifetime, which character would describe my reaction?

What would we do if the Easter story took place today?  What would we do if Jesus showed up, performed miracles, and spoke truth to a hurting world?  What would you do if the crowd shouted to crucify him, and they asked you to join them?

We always try to identify with the people who were there, the people whose names are now just words on a page but whose stories are so…relatable.  Women can identify with one of the Mary’s, who went to visit Jesus at the tomb or who sat at His feet.  Men can identify with John, the beloved disciple, who took care of Jesus’ mother after His crucifixion.

We want to be the people in the story who didn’t mess up, who were triumphant to the end.  We want to be the ones who pushed through the crowd and begged the officials not to crucify Jesus.  We want to be the ones who believed in Jesus and understood what He was doing for us in that very moment.

There’s only one problem with this desire…No one in the story fits that description.

The truth is: we all fall short, just like every person in the story of Holy Week.  

Two of the most famous failures of this story are Judas’s betrayal of Jesus, and Peter’s denial of Jesus.  Judas was one of Jesus’s disciples, one of the people that Jesus let into His inner circle.  Judas had a front-row seat to all of Jesus’s teachings, witnessing all of His miracles and hearing the testimonies of those Jesus had affected.  Even after three years of this, Judas’s heart was still as cold as ice, and his love of money kept him from being transformed by the love of God.  He sold Jesus out for a couple of pieces of silver.  When he finally realized the stupidity of his decision, he threw the money on the ground of the temple, “went away,” and hanged himself (see Matthew 27).

Peter had a very special relationship with Jesus.  Jesus blessed Peter to be the leader of the new Church.  Jesus called Peter to walk on water with Him, in the middle of the sea.  Jesus allowed Peter to see His healing power, as well as to understand the mysteries of His teachings.  Peter made a vow to never deny Jesus.  He even swore that he would be willing to die with Him.  But even after three years of knowing Jesus, Peter rejected Him in front of a handful of strangers, only to avoid his opportunity to die with Him.  One could feel the dagger thrust through Peter’s conscious as his Lord turned around and looked right at him, seconds after he denied knowing Him (see Luke 22).

Unfortunately, we are much more like Judas and Peter than we would like to admit.  We want to be the ones to stay with Jesus until the very end, but we mess up before we even get close to the finish line.  We wake up each morning, ready to live for Jesus completely, but we fail before we even leave the house.

We want to be the heroes in this story, but the true hero is and only can be Jesus. 

Jesus was the only one in this story who didn’t fail.  He was the only one who was beaten, mocked, and scorned, and still came out victorious through it all.  Jesus was the one who offered opportunities of redemption to both Judas and Peter.  If there was one thing that the disciples must have learned by spending so much time with Jesus, it was that He was in the business of forgiving those who least deserved His love.

Judas believed he was least deserving of the love of Jesus, and instead of running to the beautiful forgiveness of Jesus, the only option he saw in front of him was to end his own life.  He missed out on the chance to be redeemed and transformed by Jesus because he was too busy looking at his own sin.

Peter also believed he was least deserving of the love of Jesus.  However, his story differs from the story of Judas in that Peter did not run from Jesus.  As a matter of fact, when Jesus’s tomb was rumored to be empty, Peter literally ran into the tomb to make sure that Jesus had actually risen from the dead (John 20:8).  What a beautiful picture of repentance: running right toward the Savior, knowing that there is no better place to turn.  Jesus encounters Peter and reaffirms His plan for his ministry.  Jesus forgives him, as if he had never denied Him in the first place.  Peter did not look at his own sin; rather, he looked at the miracle of Jesus’s life-giving power.  As a result, Peter was able to receive the grace for which Jesus died and rose again.

So, how do you fit into Holy Week?  The question isn’t “Will you mess up?”  The question is: “When you mess up, will you allow your failure to define you, or will you trust Jesus to forgive you?”  Let Jesus be the hero of this Easter story.

We are moving to the element of a community about which I know very little. But this topic is what inspired me to think about third world countries in a different light. This topic caused me to question whether the American, first-world way is the only acceptable way. It changed my perspective on what is necessary for survival.

In 2010, the earthquake in Haiti destroyed many homes and public buildings in Port au Prince. As a result, numerous families found residence in tents. There are currently several tent cities in Haiti, including Cite Soleil.

Because people lived in tents, there was very little protection. Many people were kidnapped, raped, and/or killed. Strong winds and pouring rain would invade the tents, making it impossible for the inhabitants to get comfortable.

Many people still live in tents. Struggling to survive, they pray for someone to intervene and help them relocate.

Our team worked in a resettlement village. Everyone living there used to live in tents, but the government asked them to move into homes. Our bumpy bus drove past the small cement buildings. We knew there was no running water. There were barely windows! How could that be considered good living?

As we talked about it, a woman who had grown up in Haiti shared her insight. Most Haitians did not know what American houses look like. Haitians do not aspire to have large mansions. Most people in Haiti just want protection. They want shelter from the heat and from the rain. These cement houses, albeit small, provided for the needs of these people.

Again, I know the least about this topic. But I want to start a conversation. What IS necessary for survival when it comes to shelter? Do we need air conditioning or heat? Do we need running water and sewage?

The concept of shelter caused me to take a step back and rethink my American values. What if the things we consider wrong or bad are actually just different? To fix Haiti, do we need to buy every Haitian family a nice house?

How can we help Haiti? Does Haiti even need our help?

Even several days after coming back from Haiti, I am still wrestling with these questions. It may take longer than I thought to answer them.