Fear is a distressing emotion aroused by a perceived threat. (dictionary definition)
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| Pink from Tuesday |
Would you want to have a written schedule for your entire life, telling you what choices to make each day? You check your schedule right after waking up - today do yoga, then grocery shop, call Mary and then sign up for the photography class. Then after lunch you go to your desk .... follow the schedule.
First of all, I would be a little freaked out having a written schedule appear every morning on my bedside table. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?
No, you don't want to be told everything, just the big things. You want to plan your fun minutes, and let God take care of the serious moments.
Well, it doesn't work that way. Every hour in our day is what makes us who we are, they bundle together to create us. The hours congregate to form our days, which all strung together forms our lives, our souls and bodies.
If we had that schedule laid out for us every day, we wouldn't need to keep our eyes focused on God all day long.We would keep our eyes on the schedule. The key to life abundant and joyful, my friend, is keeping our eyes on God.
Keep your eyes on God, lean into Him, stay in the light of His presence. Sounds so easy. But the trick is, you don't just do it once, you have to keep choosing to do it every minute of every day. Just like holding in your abs while you do yoga. If you don't think about it even for two seconds, they release. HA!
Keep your eyes on God, then fear is a non-issue.
Follow God's will. Oh yes, really simple eh? But what are the details of doing just that. Ask people how they know what is God's will for them. I have been asking people for decades. I want to know. How do you know?
Mankind has been struggling with knowing God's will for over five thousand years, so I do not pretend that I can solve this for everyone. I am working on figuring it out, life is a journey. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. Isaiah 55
We have the Bible, inspired by His Spirit. Any choice I make won't go against the Bible. Not nitpicking the words, but the wisdom imparted in the pages.
We have prayer and meditation, listening to Him and talking with Him. BE STILL.
We have other people who walk closely with Him to shed light on our path when our flashlight battery is flickering. These advisers I choose carefully. We have churches, communities of others who are trying to walk a similar path as us.
We have the peace of the Holy Spirit inside us, that grows and flourishes when we are walking in the path God intended for us. And feels prickly to me when I am straying.
Good news, God loves me so much that when I veer off the path, He will do all He can to redirect me and get me back on track. Even let me get cancer. That's a lot of love. He loves you everlastingly too.
So how will I stay on this path from here on out? By looking upwards, every step of the way. I can't do it by myself. Trust that He loves me so much that He will gently show me the way. Be Still and Know that He is God.
This was handwritten on a slip of paper found in one of Mike's Great-Grandmother's Bibles upstairs in her home in Midland Michigan. It is part of a poem by Louise Haskins, quoted by King Edward in 1937 in his Christmas radio address. It is beautiful. It hit me when I found it in her bible ten years ago, and it still stirs me.
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
Give me light that I may travel safely into the unknown.
And He replied,
Go out into the darkness
and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way.
His Majesty, King Edward of England 1937
