ANXIOUS? TIRED? STRESSED OUT?

heavy hearted? anxious? weighed down?

have you ever felt this way?

irritated without knowing why?

Just out of whack?

Anxious?

Just plain tired mentally, emotionally, physically? 

Drained?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, chances are that you are pretty normal. These feelings come naturally as life happens everyday.

Life is filled with email writing, texting, schedule running, errands, bills, work, kids and their activities, groceries, cooking, family hosting, holidays, parties, parent teacher conferences, cleaning, laundry, relationships and friendships, raising kids, homework, being married, financial stress, etc. You name it, life is filled with all kinds of things that take our time, energy, emotions, resources, and everything else we are made of. 

It’s noise, blur, distractions, confusion and unrest that it’s meant to keep us numb, disconnected, always running, flying by the seat of our pants from one activity to another, never stopping to listen, to calm down, to refuel, to recharge, to slow down and rest, to contemplate, meditate, take a good look around, the evaluate, to be aware, etc.

Our hearts are always rushing, always just reacting, readjusting, and trying our best to keep ourselves together in the midst of chaos, and more often than not we are not able to truly function the way we are supposed to, so we end up just barely making it every day. Our hearts are so tired that we flare up at the smallest of things. We yell at our kids cause we are in turmoil inside of us already. Our spouses feel the weight of our fury! Filters that we have developed through the years that make us hear things that are not said that mess with us. Or maybe those things are being meant to hurt us, but even more so because of our filters they seem and feel a lot deeper and heavier. A financial setback or the worries or our mortgage payment or something else that make us lose control and either take it out on someone we love or someone we despise or it makes us run to things that will take away the feeling momentarily, whether is TV binging, shopping, drugs, alcohol, porn, more work, more activities that make our schedule fuller, or whatever drug of our choice we pick.  WE are running on fumes. We are running on empty. And where do we get refueled? Where do you go to refill? What is your source of filling up? 

What do you fill your heart and soul up with?

The everyday life struggles and things that make it noisy and keep us distracted makes us zombies that just go through life barely making it. We are so distracted, confused, like chickens with our heads cut off and we are barely hanging on.

Yet stopping seems too complicated, too risky, too time wasting, too inefficient, too worthless.

But what is our other option? Do we even realize how much noise we have going on? How can we expect to know the one who whispers, the one who speaks in the secret, in the quiet, in the stillness?

How can we learn to live a life of listening to Jesus and His Spirit and His voice and guidance and leading when the only way we could do this is by quieting our crazy lives and sitting down and listening and abiding and just basking in His presence, feeding on every word and insight and wisdom that he gives?

What other way is there? Really. Seriously. What other option do we have that is better? Who else offers us the kind of promises, rewards and life that he does?

What does the world offer you? Let’s look at the things it does offer us compared to the way of Jesus.

Let’s take an honest look.

For me, i truly need to think about these things and remember them every day of my life cause i easily get caught up in the trap of performance and doing and trying to prove i am worth it and that i produce, etc. I can start thinking and living and believing that the busier i am the more justified is my presence in this world. The more i do, the more i accomplish should make me feel better, yet i see a different rule in my life. The more i do, the busier i get, the more i produce and the more i accomplish seem to not satisfy but the opposite. These things make me feel drained, unfulfilled, dissatisfied, like i’m not enough, like i need to do more, etc. It is a trap. 

And yet, when i abide in Christ, when i am spending time resting in his presence, looking and gazing upon him, loving and being loved by him, listening to his word and meditating on it, the fuller, the better, the more fulfilled i feel, and the times when i connect with others, and the things that i do out of the flow of being in his presence, the people he connects me with and the things he gives me to do every day, whether many of them or just one, they fill my heart and make it glad, cause i know i am living out of the flow of my relationship with him, and whatever i accomplish everyday is enough cause it came out of my obedience to him. I do and say only what he asks me to do and say. Nothing more, nothing less. And that is all he is asking me to do. 

I have to remember that. I cannot worry about that which i am not doing or accomplishing if that’s not what he has asked me or showed me or invited me to do. Only living this way can i be free, fulfilled, at peace, at rest, with joy, with abundant life.

And why would i want to live any other way???