With

I am a lucky girl.  I lead a pretty wonderful life.  I am a stay-at-home-mom to two sweet, smart, funny, beautiful children and I spend my days experiencing life with them and my mommy friends while my amazing husband "slaves" away at work to provide this wonderful life for our family. 

Today I got up and took the kiddos to the gym where they played at childcare while I enjoyed an hour of peace and quiet to balance and strengthen my body with pilates. Then we met our friends at the aquarium where we looked at fish for approximately five minutes before spending the following hour and a half in the children's area where Q and his buddy D proceeded to soak themselves despite the plastic aprons they wore while playing with the fake fish. When our parking meters indicated it was time to go before getting a ticket, we headed over to lunch at Red House Cafe, one of our favorite local spots. Fortunately all four kiddos behaved well and I actually got to enjoy some meaningful adult conversation!

I love love love these women! I crave time with them. I want to tell them everything going on in my life and hear their wisdom and perspective.  I want to hear about everything going on in their lives and offer any love, encouragement, or insight I can. I have no agenda for meeting with them other than just being together and enjoying deep friendship. 

This simple desire just to live life with my girlfriends makes me think of my relationship with God. Too often I live life under, over, from, or for God as opposed to with God. I have been reflecting on this a lot lately as I have been reading the book "With" by Skye Jethani that was recommended to me by one of these very women. It has really challenged me to think about how I relate to God and how I might unintentionally be attempting to use God to control my own life as opposed to living life with Him as He intended.

"Life under, over, from, and for God each seeks to use God to achieve some other goal. God is seen as a means to an end. For example, life from God uses him to supply our material desires. Life over God uses him as a source of principles or laws. Life under God tries to manipulate God through obedience to secure blessings and avoid calamity. And life for God uses him and his mission to gain a sense of direction and purpose." ~Skye Jethani, "With"

I identify with all of the mentioned postures, but particularly the life for God posture. "They {those who live life for God} fixate, and some obsess, about 'making a difference in the world.' They fear living lives of insignificance... Behind all of this is the Life For God belief that their value is determined by what they achieve." {Jethani, pg. 88} If you've read my blog much, I'm sure you can see how this is very much me! 

As I am reading this book and reflecting on how I relate to God, I am longing to move from life under, over, from, and for God to one where my greatest desire is simple to live life with God in a similar way to the way I love living life with my cherished girlfriends. A life in which simply being in His presence is the goal, not the means to some other end.