When I wander away...

Sometimes... my mind wanders... and I need a jolt back to reality. I can stare off in to space, thinking about nothing, in a daze. I'm not really thinking about anything. Just blank.

Sometimes... my spirit wanders...

I don't will it to, but sometimes it just seems to happen. I pray but it's casual or detached. I read God's Word but it doesn't sink in, nothing stands out to me. I sit through church and can't help but yawn and go through my "to do" list in my head.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Romans 7:15

Now, when my spirit wanders, it's not because I just felt like getting away for a while. I don't want to leave God's presence. This verse (Romans 7:15) indicates that even Paul struggled with messing up!

Now that I know Jesus, I'd say that the great majority of my sins are unintended. That doesn't mean they were an accident exactly, they could have been prevented.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. 2 John 1:8

We should be aware, on guard all the time, ever looking out for that lion which roams the earth. What lion hunts out in the open? Have you ever been watching one of those great National Geographic hunt scenes and seen the lion walk up to the zebra and tap it on the shoulder?

This spiritual wandering often comes from that feeling that "everything's okay". You get comfortable and lazy. And once you've got your guard down... the devil takes advantage.

Why attack when you are strong?

Our human nature to be lazy is a great tool for him to use. Certainly less work for him when we let things go a little bit and stop paying attention. It's then that he starts chipping away at us. Planting seeds of doubt... stirring up old hurts for us to dwell on... tending to the embers of a sin struggle...

Or just nurturing that slow-growing but deep-rooted and invasive vine of apathy.

pray continually; 1 Thessalonians 5:17

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18

And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe. 1 Thessalonians 2:13

Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. Ecclesiastes 11:6

Morning, noon, and night I cry out in my distress, and the LORD hears my voice. Psalm 55:17

We have to be diligent! We can't be careless about our prayers. We can't stop praising and thanking God. We can't stop honoring Him with our lives. We can't get to a point where we feel like we've done "well enough". We cannot let our guard down.

Of course we get tired. And resting is good. (umm God invented that, remember?) But we can't let apathy creep in.

God promised to carry us when we were tired.

I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint." Jeremiah 31:25

But He didn't say our journey would stop. Whether we are being carried or not, we can only go onward. Oh! Sometimes it is so hard... but it is always worth it! We have to press on!

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' Matthew 25:23

I can't wait to share in my Master's happiness!

Supermom?

Us moms and our quest to be "supermom" is crazy. When did being a mom become about being the best anyway? When did being a mom become a race to the top?

And where is the top?

If I look around at my competitors I start to make a list of the qualities I must have to be supermom.

1) I must rise at dawn (or earlier) to grind my own wheat, milk the cows, and collect the eggs to make my bread from scratch.

2) I must homeschool my children with THE most popular (and possibly the most expensive) curriculum. (If I don't make up my own based on whatever I won a Nobel Peace Prize for in the days after I was in the Peace Corps!)

3) I must be fit and slim, run 5 miles each morning (before or after the cows?), and always brush my hair.

4) I must run my kids to every imaginable activity and they'll have to be the best.

5) I must never be angry or upset at my children. Instead I will pamper them and tell them how wonderful they are... because they won't be anything but wonderful. And they'll know their ABCs by age 2...

Ok, I HOPE you are laughing at these. Just about no one on this planet fits the bill. The things is: sometimes we make each other feel like we need to live up to this.

Or more accurately... we let ourselves feel unworthy because we don't match up with another human. We find something admirable in one person, and almost immediately it becomes a focal point of our inadequacies.

We torture ourselves with this thinking! And all around you, other moms are measuring themselves up to you! (Yes, really!)

It's not just moms that do it. At the workplace it happens. In every social scene, people are measuring each other up. But to what standard? Comparing people to people will never be fair.

Your value does not hinge on anyone but Jesus!

And He won't think any more or less of you based on what you accomplish here on earth. He wants your heart, not your whole-grain-organic-made-from-scratch bread!

Trade your cape for His clean, white robe. Trade your inadequacies for His Awesome Power. Trade your imagined accomplishments for His Glory. And just rest in His arms!

Who needs to be Supermom when you have the ultimate SuperDad!?