HUA - Heard, Understood, Acknowledged

I am not God. I feel like writing that down a thousand times on a chalkboard and maybe then it will sink in. I take on too much – I try too hard to be too many things to too many people. It comes from a good place – well – it STARTS in a good place. I have a desire to share God’s love and the love He has given me for others. The problem is that I also enjoy being needed. And that can be twisted so easily into something unhealthy, hurtful, prideful, sinful…

My current schedule is a blur of color – activities and dates – people and places color coded to show who it is I’m doing things for… If it is my husband it is yellow, if it is for my mom it is pink, if it is for myself it is green, if it is for my body it is red, if it is for church it is blue… And it just struck me as I typed this – why is everything a different color? Shouldn’t everything I do be for God? Shouldn’t I be living my life for Him and not myself? Who am I serving with all this activity?

Galatians 1:10 says:
For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.

But I am a bond-servant of Christ! Because of His love for me I am saved! Because of His love for me I am forgiven! Because of His love for me I am set free! I am not condemned! God loved me so much that He sent His Son to die in my place. And His Son loved me so much that He DIED for me. A lady in our bible study tonight raised the question “If He was willing to die for me, how can I not be willing to live for Him?” And it got me to thinking, who am I really living for?

Am I living for my family, for my friends? Am I living for their approval? Am I living for their love? That’s not to say that those things don’t mean anything – but that should not be what I’m striving for.

Psalm 46:10 tells me to Cease Striving and KNOW that He is God… what does that look like? What should that look like? I don’t know exactly, but I do know what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like my calendar. It doesn’t look like me taking on everything just because I’m trying to be a people pleaser or earn/keep someone’s love. It doesn’t look like me feeling emotionally exhausted and robbed of peace because I’m worried about what other people think about me when I can or can’t or do or don’t or will or won’t.

And then tonight, while talking to a friend about how I feel guilty for not being able to do more for people and give them more because they need it - I had a moment of clarity. While it is true I’m trying to give the Fruit’s of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control) to all my friends if I’m honest with myself – it’s not really always the best fruit – because it’s really not always God centered.

And if I’m standing in the way offering them my inferior “fruit” how will anyone see the perfect fruit that God wants to give them which is discussed in Philippians 1:11 - having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. God made it completely clear to me tonight that He doesn’t need me to do His work. He needs me to maybe get out of His way. It was a rebuke and it was a little painful to get it, but it’s true. I need to change my focus back to where it should be.

So I’m going to take my schedule and re-dedicate it. I’m re-examining my priorities and I’m not going to worry about how that makes other people feel about me. I am sorry if it changes our friendships or if it upsets anyone that I am less available. My hope is that instead of being upset with me they will seek and find what they are looking for in someone far more able to fill them than I am. I think Paul expresses my prayer far better than I ever could in Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

Amen.

Amen, indeed!