The Nearly Naked Life

Calming the Heck Down

I'm just going to throw this up here so it's right in front of my face. And you guys can just keep throwing it back at me when I need it.

My boat was unexpectedly rocked today. I just got word of something that will affect my family and my work - maybe a little, maybe a lot. Generally, I don't handle change well. I don't handle the not knowing well. This time, I don't have a choice. I have to wait. I have to not know for now.

But I do. I do have a choice. Maybe not about what happens in this situation, but I do have a choice - the choice between freaking out and throwing myself into a panic OR doing what I would tell any of you to do - trust God. 

Okay. I won't lie. There was some of reaction #1. There may be, no, probably will be, moments of reaction #1 in the future. 

But I'm aiming for trust. Help me shoot straight, my peeps. Help me keep my eye on the prize and just keep making the next step, and the next, refusing to let my focus move off Jesus. I don't want to be guilty of expecting too little of God. I don't want to miss the path because I'm too busy trying to make things happen on my own.

'This is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, says: “If you come back to me and trust me, you will be saved. If you will be calm and trust me, you will be strong.” But you don’t want to do that.' - Isaiah 30:15 (NCV)

In Isaiah 30, the Israelites' circumstances were freaking them out, and they were panicking in a major way. An enemy army was coming - a big, strong, viscious one. Instead of turning to God for help, they took things into their own hands. They decided to try to outrun the army on horseback. God gave Isaiah the prophet a word for His people, and it was the verse above, which contains a promise. In today's language, it would be something like this:

• If you could just get your eyes off yourselves for a minute and put your focus back where it belongs, on Me, you'll be just fine.
• If you calm the heck down and quit flapping all over the place, you'll have strength left to follow me well in the path I'll show you.

But the verse doesn't end well. The Israelites didn't want to do that. They chose the freak out, the flapping around, the figuring it out on their own. And they were destroyed.

Their circumstances didn't have to destroy them. My circumstances don't have to destroy me. They chose destruction of their own free will. They didn't have to choose destruction, but they did BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THEY WANTED IT.

But I don't. I don't want that. I want to choose well when things are uncertain, up in the air, changing.

I will put my eyes on Jesus. When my eyes stray off, I will bring them back and put them right back on Him.

I will calm the heck down and quit flapping all over the place. I will save my strength for following Him instead of spending it on trying to figure things out myself.

I will trust. I do not want to be one of whom He sadly says, "She knew the right way to handle life, but she didn't want to do that."