Rest before Responsibility

Today I actually began to grapple with some of the material I’ve already written for Sky. Went through the notebook, putting in additional dividers and just seeing what I had, cleared off my desk and backboard, read through the prologue. It’s a start.

At the same time I’ve been thrashing anew with my attempts to take control. Despite all the lessons, all the months and years of learning this concept, it’s still hard to apply. Maybe because it’s been awhile since I’ve had to apply it to writing.

For several days now the internal nag has been growing louder. I have to get to work. I have to get this proposal done. I haven’t. I’m bad. I need to be more disciplined… blah, blah, blah… see about a hundred of my past blogs for this same ridiculous conflict. For me, it really IS “Let go and let God.” Of course, that presupposes the daily exposure to the teaching of God’s word and keeping sensitive to whether I’m filled with the Spirit or not. And confessing if I’m not.

But in practice, when it comes to what I should do, it’s let go. Stop trying to control the process, stop trying to think you know what is supposed to happen in your life, and even what is supposed to be “working” on the book.

For example, yesterday (Tuesday) I took my mother for her MRI. I had to sit in the office for about an hour and twenty minutes. I read Lone Survivor. I know stuff gleaned from that will go into Sky. I know, because stuff from that is going into my life. I could probably do a hundred blogs on that book, but I won’t. (That would surely violate copyright). It’s just there’s so much there that lines up with the Christian life, in the area of training and in the actual combat, so many terrific visual aids…

Even more than that, I’m not just here to write a book. I’m here to bring glory to God and that is mostly done through thinking. Through capturing every thought to the obedience of Christ or Bible Doctrine, since that is the mind of Christ. I’m supposed to be actively thinking the things I’ve learned, applying those principles to ever facet of my life.

And what I’ve been learning lately, over and over, is that God is going to do the work and I’m going to receive the benefit. If you’re going to trust someone else to do a job it means you step away and let them. I have to wait for His timing and stop trying to dictate. It’s a privilege to be able to help my mother, and a pleasure. Why sully the experience by letting myself worry and fret in the background about “time lost”?  It’s not time lost, it’s time spent on my Father’s business.

Instead of condemning myself for doing a bunch of other things rather than the book… recall that God is leading me. That I don’t know what His plan for my life today looks like. That I have to be flexible to follow His leading, not insist on how I think the day should go. And I’ll admit I do have a template that I keep pulling out and trying to slap over my life.  It looks something like this:  I get up in the morning, get dressed, eat breakfast and go immediately to work on the book, writing  a certain amount of words each morning (like every other  professional writer seems to do), and maybe another amount of words after lunch. Then I can feel good about what I’ve done.

Then I can feel about what I’ve done.

Instead of just trusting it to God. Instead of feeling good because I’m in union with Christ, a child of God, in the Plan.

I’m trying to provide my own peace and contentment by “accomplishing things” when that’s not what God wants at all.  Focusing on that peace and contentment seems to be most helpful. If I lose it, I can rebound and remind myself that God has everything under control. Go back to Him and ask again for his leading. I keep wanting to be “responsible” and “reliable” before men (including myself). When what I really ought to want is to be in the rest with the One who really matters.

“Therefore, let us fear lest while a promise remains of entering His rest any one of you should seem to have come short of it.”  – Heb 4:1

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