Hidden behind the 30 year old me is the 12 year old me who hasn't really changed. She's just buried under pretense, self-imposed expectations, and graceless dreams. She's worried to be set free because what if the life she dreamed of having doesn't look quite like the life she actually finds herself in now?
But there is this percolating in my soul. A longing for more but not the more I longed for before. The old dreams need to die to give life to the new. I still long for places unseen, adventures and accomplishments. Yet God keeps trying to teach me something different. Over and over the message seems to be the same:
Slow down. Cease striving. Be still, and know, that He is God.
Breathe in, breathe out, and there it is again. Weed a few more weeds, water again, push back the chaos and keep working knees to the dirt. Wipe another cheek, read another book, wash another round of dishes. Do another push-up, take a few more steps, run a little longer. Open the Word, meditate on it, be planted firmly by the streams of water again.
It is in the patient endurance of the mundane, it is in the daily disciplines of regular life that the landscape of character and holiness is formed. That the life I really want, emerges.
But I want it all now. I want the vistas. I want the quick and easy, I want the flashy and the important. I don't want to wait. And so I walk quickly and talk fast and write lists and do more. With the hope that the life I want will come about. Now.
Forget weeding and leggy hostas, give me the picture perfect garden now. Forget the nose wiping and breaking up fights, give me the beautiful family dinners now. Forget training and re-training these tired muscles, give me a lean figure now. And forget fighting off another sinful habit, give me a sin-less soul now.
Breathe in, breathe out, and there it is again. A different desire in place of the old.
"Meet me here, in this life I'm in," my soul whispers, "Help me accept the person I am, and believe in Your promises of who You are making me to be. Bring life into the mundane motions of everyday life, MY everyday life."
It is no surprise my word this year is surrender. I feel like I must surrender my big insta-plans and replace them with the slow and chiseling realities of process. I'm having to re-learn what it means to dream. My youthful, naive dreams of accomplishment, travel and fame are unraveling. And instead, I dream of true surrender. Of a spirit of contentment. Of a quiet acceptance of what is, in every season. Of living with hope of what is to come, alongside a peace of what is now.
I think true visions and dreams start with surrender, and trust:
"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on until completion." Philippians 1:6
No comments:
Post a Comment