Friday, January 15, 2016

Simple Steps: Welcome to 2016!

In starting this year I've wanted to begin to write more. It feels awkward and unnatural as I've been out of consistent practice for the past 4 years. These blogs will be simple. They will at times have terrible grammar, I'm sure. But for the next year I am challenging myself to take the simple step of writing, on simple subjects that I have found define who I am. Will you come on this journey with me as I try to get what's within me, out once again? As I try to unstop what has felt trapped the last 4 years? If so check back every other week for the next year and beyond.

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A new year has begun without my permission. How dare it? It seems like I blinked and December was over. I can't say that I was ready in any capacity for the New Year. I definitely didn't have my ducks in a row, my goals accomplished from last year nor my vision for this coming year all neat, tidy and set before me. The last 4 years have been a whirlwind of activity, change and just to be honest, full...the fullest of my life. I know that I'm young and still single so to many of you that's not saying much but they have been. Trust me.

In trying to be faithful with what God has given me slowly I have realized that God has given me quite a lot! It's definitely a blessing but increased responsibility also brings the increased temptation to be stressed out of my mind. I've learned what capacities I have that I didn't realize that I had and I've also realized, probably more than ever, where my limits are. The limits are probably much more clear than my capacities thus far.

At the end of each year I love to look back on things; I like to see where I've been, what the Lord has done, etc. Mostly I like to do this because I love to be thankful and to see the faithfulness of the Lord. Because He's always, always faithful. 2015 included things that were beautiful and experiences that I will never forget!

I also like to look forward...

I'm a planner. One of my highest strengths is development. I want to make a plan and stick to it as much as I can. I want to see weaknesses so that I can lean into them and create strengths. I want to see where and how far I can get and what is keeping me from that.

I'm also perpetually hard on myself. I can't just pick out one weakness and move towards fixing it, instead when I look, I see every single weakness that exists. So instead of just having 2 areas to focus and change I have about 30 areas of life; and it's not hard for me to end up feeling like I'm the laziest person on earth who wastes all of her time on empty things that have no eternal value when in reality I'm just trying to implement far too much at once.

But this year as I sat down with my journal as I do every start of the year, to contemplate what things I'd like to work on, what I'd like to see, where I'd like to go, etc. I realized that what I want to spend my energy on is getting back to the One thing at the center of all things; which is and always will be Him. When I had that thought it felt too simplistic. The conversation with the Lord after the thought went something similar to what follows below:

Me: "I need to have some dreams for this year."

The Lord: "You do?"

Me: "Yes. Things I can measure. Some goals, perhaps?"

The Lord: "Really?"

Me: "God? Are you hearing yourself? What am I going to tell people that I'm doing this year?"

The Lord: "Can I just be your one thing and focus this year? Isn't falling more in love with me what matters?"

*awkward yet beautiful silence*

Me: "You mean that's enough? But where are we going? What are we doing? What am I supposed to put in my newsletters?"

The Lord: "If you fall more in love with me, won't it be natural that you fall in love with who and what I'm in love with? Isn't that enough?"

*tears* (because it's always tears with me)

You see, when I measure myself on the scale and standard I set for myself I will always fail, and fail miserably. I cannot measure up when I am making the rules and trying to implement the changes in my own strength.

He's the One thing, the gauge that we should measure everything to. And that's enough. Period. Especially for us planners and developers. He's on His own plan and He tends to plan completely different than we do. I feel this major pull of Him bringing us back to a simple place with Him. I actually love the culture that I live in, where we are constantly pressing in for more, where we want to see what is next in Him, where we recognize that there is always more. But I think that sometimes with the Lord, His answer for our call for "more" may actually feel like less. I think God is way more concerned that we get the most important things REALLY well, and really deep so that it's so much a part of it that it spills into every part of our lives and the lives around us.

It's time to get back to the start; to purity, to calm, to who we are in Him. It's time to come back to the beginning. To be who I am, even if that feels simplistic or like what I have to give is a small offering. After all, what can we give Him that He doesn't already have? It's time for us, once again, to simply fall more in love with Jesus in every area of our lives, and for that to be enough. Because when we fall more in love with Him, it will be natural that we fall more in love with what He's in love with.

So, if you're a planner like me, if you are driven and passionate and want to move into the "more" of the Lord; let 2016 be the year that you simply plan to fall more in love with him in a beautiful, simple, pure and fresh way. It's so easy to overcomplicate things. Heck, I overcomplicated what was supposed to be my "simple" first blog of the year. Let's not overcomplicate this. He is our One thing and we need to simply fall more in love with Him.

In closing I came across a timely prophetic word as I started my year. I leave it with you:
"New things are being established as you take simple steps." Remember that the Kingdom isn't built the way the natural world is, not through striving or frustration. It's built through simple steps of obedience and faithfulness which need to come out of the motivation of this one thing: love. 

Let's endeavor together to simply fall in love with Him more this year. To offer ourselves wholeheartedly, even when it feels like we don't have much to bring to Him in the offering.

-L-

(I'd also encourage you all to purchase United Pursuit's album "Simple Gospel" as you start this year)

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