I'm in this "funk" today.
I absolutely hate being lazy. But I also hate being a perfectionist.
Today I've just been lounging around, sleeping. I guess the same could be said for yesterday, apart from the 4 hours I spent at our home group.
I notice I feel anxious when I do nothing and I really dislike the feeling. I feel useless and out of touch with God. Like He is frowning on me or something. I know it isn't true, but I still get this feeling of anxiousness. I'm having a mild head cold and I can't seem to shake off the slouchyness. Argh. Times like these, for some reason, make me hesitant to read the Bible or hear grace messages. I simply feel unworthy for them when I'm just sitting around. I feel insincere or unworthy. Yuck.
I wish mom would wake up from the couch so I could wash dishes or do something! I hate lying around doing nothing!
4 comments:
I know it can be hard to truly desire to be doing things in the name of Christ and yet not feel the motivation or pull to do anything... leading to the type of funk you're talking about. But I would really encourage you to not only be patient, but also to really enjoy just "being." If Father has a specific thing He wants you to do, He'll be sure to tell you. :) Perhaps He wants to assure you that He's not expecting anything from you. He just wants you. And not to discourage you from prayer, because prayer is a wonderful thing, but I think that part of "being" is simply that... "being."
I know that sometimes when I'm thinking I should be doing something, but I can't get motivated to do anything, I think I should spend that time praying. But I can't get motivated to pray, either. So I've learned, and am still learning, to just "be."
God "is."
He says, "I am." Sure, God does a lot and He communicates a lot. But He also simply "is." And I believe we can "be" too.
I don't know if I expressed my thoughts very well here, but perhaps Steve McVey said it best when he visited my church a couple of years ago. He said he could sum up all of what he had said during the course of the 3 or 4 messages he had preached over the weekend by saying simply, "Lighten up!" :-D
Hey Joel,
I appreciate your comment very much. That is definitely the solution to my problem. But it's the hardest thing in the world to stay focused on the truth. We have to be continually reminded of God's love for us.
Today for example. I felt the urge to run from God today because I had been doing nothing the past 3-4 days. I've just been watching movies, listening to a few sermons and playing video games because I've had this mild cold. But I feel unworthy to go to the God after that because I saw again how totally loveless I can be toward Him and people.
Remembering who I am is a big part of it. But I'm also having strong confusion about Christ living in and through me. I'm just not exactly sure HOW to do it.
Matthew, I bet that's a question that's been asked a trillion times... "How do I 'do' this Christ-in-me thing?"
Quite a while ago, this came up on the Grace Walk forum. "How do we "abide" in Christ?" After a small amount of discussion, I finally brought it up in the 'Ask Steve' section. For some reason the forum won't load for me right now so I can't find that discussion, but one thing that Steve said really stuck out to me.
Not an exact quote here, but I think he replied with a question that went something like, "HOW do you "abide" in a kitchen?" The answer is, there is no "how." You simply are there!
We are in Christ and He is in us. What I'm discovering more and more is that if we "try" some method to abide in Christ, or to have Him live in and through us, then we get our eyes off of the fact that we are in Him and He is in us.
More and more I'm thinking that the answer is even farther away from what the church teaches that I'd previously thought! The answer is to simply "be." As we "be," we live and move and have our existence in Christ, and He moves in and through us, not through any "how to" or "method," and not through us working up a certain amount of our own "unction" to perform spiritual service, but we move as He moves us. I believe we can simply rest, and trust that He'll move in and through us when He's good and ready to.
I think that if we're focused on "self," and how we can abide in Him, we miss the mark completely.
I remember back to times in my life when I felt frustrated or angry at myself because I felt lazy or I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I felt like I had no vision in life. My good-intentioned but oh-so-wrong friends would bring up scriptures such as "without a vision, the people perish," and so I thought I was TOAST because I didn't have any vision of what I wanted to be or do in my life as a Christian.
But in God's own timing (not mine), HE has shown me who I am and what to do! I've learned that my worry and frustration about myself is always in vain. :)
That's why Steve's "lighten up" statement has meant so much to me. I really can relax and just "be," and I know that it's God who works in me to will and to do according to His good pleasure. He's faithful to do in us what He wants to do in us.
Matthew, thanks for sharing and Joel, thanks for your replies. They really helped me as well!
I appreciate you both so much!
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