Years ago, a friend gave me this tile that she got from the local San Xavier mission gift shop. It sits against the pot of my ponytail plant just beyond the kitchen sink. I read it almost every morning and smile …
In case it’s too small on your device to read, it says, “Good Morning! This is God. I will be handling all your problems today. I will not need your help. So, relax and have a nice day!” ~ San Xavier, Tucson, AZ
Another day of two hours of productive work on Sky! Yay!
I know I’ve written recently about changes I’ve been making — using Freedom, turning off the phone ringers and muting the answering machine, getting to bed on time, keeping stuff picked up and put away — and on the surface perhaps it does seem like those changes in my habits have made the difference.
But truth be told, I really don’t think it’s me and all my plans, but God just enabling me to do it. Slowly but surely He’s been bringing me around to maybe half believing the truth that if I just let Him do it, He will. That I really don’t have to make all these plans and spend my time fretting and figuring and fussing about the future.
One of my favorite verses, one I’ve “claimed” for years is Pro 3:5,6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”
I thought I understood it, but I’m realizing now that I didn’t really. I would trust Him with a problem, but at the same time, I would often be thinking of how things might turn out, and what I might do to head them off or encourage them… But recently it occurred to me that if I’m supposed to be trusting the Lord with ALL my “system of thinking” as Col. Thieme defined “heart” and NOT relying on my own understanding (which is another way of saying MY thoughts) then what am I doing trying to figure everything out, trying to imagine every possible exigency and what I can to do handle it? Well, clearly I’m not trusting Him.
I never saw so clearly in this verse that it’s actually telling me to “Stop It!” when it comes to all my figuring and planning.
So I decided to Stop It. Once I got really clear on the fact that I really wasn’t supposed to do it (because after all, we want to be sensible and responsible and not run off half-cocked like a fool, right?), I just gave it over to Him and boy has He come through. It’s been very cool.
“Off like a herd of turtles…”
Well, I’m happy to report that I have continued to work regularly on Sky. I did 2 1/2 hours a day last week, and so far 3 hours a day this week. All time I actually spent focused on the work at hand instead of everything else in my periphery.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve done a number of things to help myself be more productive — trying to get to bed earlier; keeping things picked up and put away so I don’t see them when I walk out of the room and thereby get distracted; using Freedom and turning off the phones. And they have helped. But overall, I think I have to chalk this up to the Lord’s doing. I feel different about it all now, and it seems almost effortless to get to work…
But I did have to get to a point of despair when it came to my own efforts and finally just give it all over to Him: “Here, Lord. I can’t do this. You handle it.”
I finished chapter 6 on Monday and started chapter 7 the next day. Today I continued on Chapter 7 and so far I have 10 pages. It’s difficult to describe how I work, because it’s pretty chaotic. I have ideas, snatches of conversations collected on various papers, cards and electronic documents. They show up when I’m making notes about what’s to happen next, or when I do nonstops about the work. I also have a sort of outline for the events/incidents that are going to happen.
So what I’ve been doing is just putting those altogether, thinking about the resultant mix, starting to question various elements of that mix, sometimes to answer the questions I posed and from all that to begin to gather and shape the ideas into a coherent narrative. And it does appear that something interesting is emerging. I’m excited!
He gives to His beloved, even in her sleep…
The following is another of the articles I wrote for one of the editions of the email newsletter I used to send out before I started blogging. This one is a little embarrassing, because the things I, myself, wrote, are the things I, myself, still struggle to recall — and more important believe — way more than I’d like to admit.
♦♦♦
Graced out in Our Sleep (From 2003 Newsletter)
I love the fact that none of this depends on me, that even though I do the work, it really doesn’t depend on me–not the publication, not the awards, none of it.
That’s been the lesson of the year–that I don’t need to get all frantic about getting everything done because my Lord will see that what needs to be done, is done. That the work I do is done for Him, and He will see to its disposition in accordance with HIS plan–and His timing–not mine.
Yet there seems to be this whole hierarchy of activities that we can get caught up in, thinking that if our work isn’t done in time or isn’t good enough or there isn’t enough of it, or whatever, that the whole thing will fail and happiness will elude us.
But true happiness does not spring from success in the world. Success may be stimulating and fun, but it doesn’t last. Because whatever work you accomplish or goal you achieve or award you win, there’ll always come a time when that gets to be old hat and you’ll need another accomplishment or another award.
And yet, as when we’ve lost our keys and go back to look in the same place over and over again, even though we know the keys aren’t there, in the same way we focus on this accomplishment thing. Thinking that if only we can get this next thing, that will provide the lasting satisfaction we crave.
And so we step onto that treadmill of running and working to achieve, getting up early, staying up late, trying to get ahead, looking for that pleasure or satisfaction or sense of contentment we think will be ours if we can just get “It.” Whatever “It” may be.
But it’s a lie and, as David says in the Psalms, it’s vain. True happiness is stable and eternal. It isn’t an emotion, but a state of mind independent of circumstances and arising out of one’s relationship with God.
Every good gift comes from Him, and true contentment lies in our fellowship with Him, in getting to know Him through His word, and seeing His grace and goodness and faithfulness as they work out in our daily lives. It’s believing Him when he says…
“Except the lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for he gives to His beloved even in his sleep. ~ Psalm 127: 1,2
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have rediscovered one of my most helpful writing books over the weekend, Overcoming Writing Blocks through which I did quite a bit of dancing. Another highlighted section that leaped out at me was the following:
“… it is important to recognize that no creative process ever flows smoothly from beginning to end. There is always much backtracking and jumping ahead along the way. In fact, this pattern is not only normal for the writer, it is also an effective way of unblocking.
Ease in writing comes from flexibility and trust in yourself, which comes from learning to tolerate a certain amount of chaos. It’s entirely natural to feel confused and intimidated when you face any new writing task…
…It is also inevitable that you’ll begin with words that will need revision. And it’s equally certain that you will find yourself resisting going back to change the text once you’ve managed to pull it all together into a complete draft.
Because writing is such an experimental process, it may help you to think of it as a spiral rather than a straight line. As though the writer were climbing a spiral staircase, he ascends by circling round and round, rising just a bit higher with each circuit, but constantly passing over the same ground, touching on the same basic topics, ideas, images and phrases, in search of their truest expression.”
This is kind of what I’m been struggling toward for awhile now… being flexible, trusting my gift and my Lord and learning to tolerate the chaos and uncertainty!
Today I moved into Chapter Two, to page 6, but as it is cobbled, chaotic and provisional, it will need a bit of work.
