I sort of zombie walked through my day today, yawned all the way to church, and then halfheartedly nodded at everyone that I passed on the way in to the service. I had the guilty thought that tonight was the last night, and that I'd rest tomorrow. I'd leave work and head home and I'd crash. As I was sitting, thinking of all the things I'd do, Nathan Galloway from Cedar Ridge Church began to speak.
God has spoken, but what are you going to do about it?
It was then that I realized that if I was living right, then I'd be rested after 7 nights at church, because the real work happens when we leave.
Christianity is exhausting. It wears you out - and I guess it should. When you're working at something difficult - or in this case, unattainable - then by the end of the day (or maybe before you even leave the house for work), you're going to be be run down, bone tired, and ready to drop.
It's easy to glorify Him at church with praise music blaring and a pastor praying over you. It's easy to glorify Him when you're surrounded by other believers. It's not so easy once you're out in the world.
What makes this really hard for me personally is that I want to be the best. If I can't do something well - if I am not reasonably confident that I'll succeed, I'm probably just not going to do it. It's the reason that I don't scrapbook or play basketball. I know on the front end that I'm not going to like the outcome.
I have to let go of that, though, because I will never - not for 5 minutes on my best day - be good enough to deserve the grace that Christ showered upon us when He died for our sins. Every morning, I pray that God will help me to be the wife and mother that he wants me to be, and every evening, I pray that He will help me to do better the next day because I never seem to get it right.
As Christians, we have to get used to failure. We have to look to Him for the strength to get up and start walking the walk again. If we constantly strive to walk closer to Him - if we pursue him with vigor in every one of our waking moments, we are going to stay worn out.
As much as I don't like the sound of it, maybe it's what we need. We never seem to be as close to Him as we are when we really have to fall on our faces and admit that we just can't do it - that we need him, and then rejuvenated by his grace, forgiveness, and promise of better things to come walk just a little bit closer to Him.
Thanks so much for sharing. So what I needed to hear. I always say it is easy to talk the talk but not always easy to walk the talk. Definately going to follow your blog.
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