This week has been quite busy. Yesterday, as I ran around town with children in tow, I thought I was going to lose my mind. texts flying, phone calls coming and going, emails to check… Reality had come and gone and I wasn’t sure where I was for a few moments, trying to keep it all straight.
At one point I stood in my hallway, almost suffocating, trying to get my head above water so I could think… All reasonableness had left the room and I had no earthly idea what to do next. In that moment I had the audacity to say,
“Why aren’t You helping me, here?”
Yep. That’s how I am you know. I’m so good at creating my own disasters and then looking for assistance. When the ship starts going down, I panic and that’s when I start asking for help. And he says to me, in a very calm and low voice,
“You did not ask.”
Right. I’m far too independent for my own good. I create my own difficult tasks, often for wonderful, righteous purposes. When the work gets too hard, I begin to sweat it out. And in the end, as I’m drowning in it, I call out for rescue. I beg for Him to throw me a line.
And almost always this is the kind hope He gives. Its a reminder that causes me to slow my pace and think on Him for a moment…
4‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Tell this to your masters: 5With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. (from Jeremiah 27)
Yes. He will give salvation and strength to those in need. I know because I am a slow learner. Amid my own drowning scenes, loud wailing, arms flailing, crying for help, He is good. He moves in, with an outstretched hand, offering His power. Why didn’t I just go this route to begin with? I’ll never know.
As I catch my breath, on the other side of calamity, I find a loving Savior who longs for me to do everything in Him, for Him, because of Him. Without Him I’m unable to produce the fruit He desires from my life. No matter how noble, when I go it alone, my good deeds are worthless.
John 15 explains it well:
4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Thank you Heavenly Father for the rescue efforts yesterday. Help me to rely on you completely and not on myself. Please. Will you remind me that my efforts are nothing without you at the core? Will you remind me to stop sweating it out alone? Thank you for bailing me out. I would have not finished yesterday without you. amen.
daily portion 