go

A week ago, in a blaze of exhaustion and tears, I wrote about weariness.

I wrote about failure.

I wrote about striving. 

I admit it, I am a striver from way back. But I tend to strive to a point of breaking and then slip into that dreaded "survival mode" that tends to look a LOT like shutting down. I somehow can manage to keep all the balls in the air and all the plates spinning but in my own heart there is an emptiness and a brokenness.

So, for the last week, I have tried to find rest and stillness.

Tried is a key statement here because it is not easy for me but somewhere in this all I managed to release the guilt I felt over all my failures in this journey. Failure to run, to eat healthy, to write. Failure to CRUSH all my goals and see the changes I expected to see. Failure to meet my own expectations.

My ability to release the guilt came from that truth of that last statement. Everything that was making me feel like such a failure was based on expectations I had set for myself and not on the acts of obedience to the Lord. The Lord as of obedience but I created the expectation for the results I expected to find.

Over the last few days as I have stood still the Lord brought me to realization. The journey I am on is not about reaching some clear destination at the end, rather it is simply the first step in a much longer journey of surrendering my heart and soul to my Maker and the Lover of my soul. As I stopped beating myself up for a moment and stood still the Lord was able to turn the corner of the next page and show me that He has far more in mind than my little brain can even fathom. 

It is a calling to a deeper intimacy than I have ever known. Its asking me to lay things down that I KEEP picking back up and leave them behind forever. It is a calling to a pursuit and passion that I can never begin to achieve on my own. It's a beckoning to drastic obedience that I have danced with but never committed myself to.

There must be a willingness to leave behind all of my own expectations in order of the Lord to give me exceedingly and abundantly more than I could ever ask or imagine. I know that I have felt this moving before in my life but somehow, the follow through is never what it should be. 

I don't know if this is the time that it will be different, but I so desperately want it to be.

I want all He has for me.

I want to stop growing weary under the weight of my own expectations and start moving forward in under the glory and immeasurable joy of His grace.

I want to learn once and for all how to be still, but also how to move.

I know that there are moments where I will have no choice but to stop, but I am praying for clarity and wisdom not to stop and get stuck.

Yes, stop.

But then...go.

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