Psalm 37:1 Do not fret because of evildoers
Psalm 37:7 Rest in The Lord and wait patiently for him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in His way.
I kind of think fretting and sighing must be cousins. Hand Holders. I hate to admit it but I have been known to be familiar with both of these.
Some days you’re just walking along and your day feels like a sigh. Not a groan, not a bad moment just melancholy and ho-hum. Now, the truth is, I am a very joyful person but days of sighs happen.
Here is the definition of sigh-
to emit a long deep, audible breath expressing sadness, relief, tiredness or a similar feeling.
We don’t mention them much because they don’t seem to be noteworthy. We mention exceptional days, or really bad days but the days of sigh are so blah and average.
Sometimes, I can get stuck there. Kind of like my editing process. Let me share a little secret with you.
I hate, loathe and dread to fail and yet I am very familiar with failing, turns out it’s an event not a person.
God comes along and actually glories in our weaknesses, it is right then his strength and grace is on display so that He gets all the glory.
No flesh shall glory in his presence. My heart whispers, I know Lord, I know.
I strangle my fleshly attempt once again in performance mode trying to make perfect in the flesh what only God can do by his spirit. Resting in his spirit and depending upon his grace is the work calls me to do. To rest and trust him to lead me into his best.
[Tweet: I strangle my fleshly attempt once again in performance mode trying to make perfect in the flesh what only God can do by his spirit.]
I take the struggles, stick them in my pocket and trudge on in like I am suppose to be there anyways. The key to failing is to fail forward straight into God’s arms.
I’ve wondered if God wants us to act this way or does He view it as arrogant? I kind of think He grins and winks and says, Get in there tiger as He is dusting off our knees.
I mean wouldn’t you say that to your kids? I would and do.
Get up dust off that sigh or that fear of failing and fear of succeeding and keep doing that thing you do.
Producing anything means you must learn to trudge on through stuff. Trudge through the muck and mire.
Life can just plain get monotonous. But what if life was a wheel of monotony and you got to fill in the blanks.
Clearly, God wires us a certain way and out of that wiring He brings out our gifts. He sits back and says, It is good.
He calls others over to look at your life, your extraordinary, ordinary beautiful life.
Simple gets such a bad wrap. It’s in the simple that you find all the sugar to sprinkle on your ordinary life.
For example have you ever seen the Simple gets such a bad wrap. It’s in the simple that you find all the sugar to sprinkle on your ordinary life. Pinterest fails? Mine, might just might be one of the pictures they have posted of those Pinterest fails.
Who cares. Do it anyways. And throw your head back and laugh.
Judging your work harshly is like signing up in front of a firing squad and then wondering why you didn’t survive.
We are all the work of reconstruction. We are in process. If we are ever gonna get comfortable in our skin we must peel off the opinions of others.
Jesus completed the perfect work of grace with his work in us. It should free us from all that friction knowing we are deeply loved.
Learning to not take yourself seriously is a sign of a healthy secure person. When someone is insecure they take themselves to serious and everything crushes them.
That’s a heavy burden to carry and Jesus set us free to live free. Learning to laugh at yourself is so healthy.
Being enslaved to the opinions of others can pin you to a wall and suck the life and self worth right out of you. We all are in search of approval but it’s the approval of God that counts.
How do I know? I have been the queen of it. But what our hearts long for, is the approval of one. Jesus.
Never wanting you to reject me reduced me down to idolatry. We don’t like to see it that way but every time we forfeit the approval of God for the approval of men we have been duped by the devil.
Underneath the surface of needing the approval of others there is rejection, hurt, abandonment issues and sadness. God comes to our side. He says, I am what you need.
You need my approval, my love, my acceptance. There would always be a place and need for others but it would never be in first place. This was reserved for him.
I believe David had this relationship with The Lord. He had many days of sadness but equal days of intimacy. He knew God. It wasn’t a religious posture to David.
It was His life and the intimate pursuit of knowing God’s love. Because of this, on the dark days He knew where He would land.
Where do you land on a dark day?
Do you find yourself sighing at times?
How do you keep going on the days that point you to look at the things that didn’t look good or turn out well?
David drew deep from within.
Where do you draw from? His walk with God wasn’t shallow and He easily could have recalled a number of things to make him sigh, but He chose God.
He chose to draw upon things to encourage himself in The Lord.
Sometimes, you gotta pick you up by the bootstraps and march yourself right into the mirror and you talk to her. You talk straight and direct and you tell her what to think on..
You tell her what a coach would tell her. Get up and get in there. There is no crying in baseball.
Wipe those tears and sigh your way through on those days and keep walking. Keep believing in the sunlight and the moonlight. Keep counting stars and designing things from the clouds.
Keep your head in the clouds because you might learn something. You might create something between the moon and the stars even on the days you sigh.
Laugh at yourself. Love yourself because God does. And when you love yourself, you can then start loving others well.
So sigh your way on through and just keep going with joy as your sidekick.
It’s your turn now.