This week marked the beginning of the Good Morning Girls winter session, Intentionally Focused. It was an incredible week! The Spirit of God revealed so much to me through studying the verses selected for each day and through the women that I study with online. I have poured over the precious words of scripture for literally hours this week drinking fresh insight from familiar words. God has honestly blown me away with His faithfulness to teach me when I apply myself to His word.
This week has not been without it's challenges and intense spiritual battles. Both of my children have been sick for over a week now and with the weather being what it is in January in Connecticut, we have been cooped up in our house without any play dates, swim lessons, library time, or preschool for fear of sharing our germs. I don't know about your kids, but my kids were not made to be cooped up in the house. By the end of the week the situation in our home had pretty much degraded to a steady stream of whining and bickering. It has been a challenge, to say the least, for me to keep a good attitude about motherhood. I struggle with my calling as a mom anyway. Ever since leaving a job that I loved to stay home with my children I have been aching to go back to work and be good at something again! So last night, after a very long day with the kids, I went to bed as soon as my kids did, and literally prayed for sleep because I was so exhausted, had a headache, and really just didn't want to think about how discontent I was with my life anymore. When sleep didn't come, I got in an argument with God.
First the questions.
Why does this have to be so hard?
Why do You insist on this stay-at-home-mom thing for me?
Why can't I do something I am good at?
I want to do Your will for my life, but why can't Your will be something different?!
I know the answers to these questions without having to ask, just like Quinn knows the answers to his questions before the whining ensues. I was whining at God, plain and simple.
Then the confessions.
I don't think I will ever be the Spirit-filled mother that I want to be. I try so hard, and fail, fail, fail. I'm so tired, I just want to do something else.
I keep telling myself this difficult season is training for something better, something more fulfilling, but I am not sure I believe You have something better, more fulfilling for me. I know I'm not worthy of something better. I'm not even worthy of this.
Uncontrollable tears.
Then the realization that I am letting Satan cripple me with fear and lies.
Indignation.
Satan, don't you dare think I will let you do this to me. Don't you dare think you will win this.
Truth is the only weapon worth wielding against Satan's attacks. And faith is the only effective shield. I choose to believe in the Truth. So I repeat over and over to myself...
God is who He says He is.
God can do what He says He can do.
I am who God says I am.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
The word of God is living and active in me.
I eventually fell asleep peacefully listing in my heart God's characteristics, remembering how I have benefited from experiencing each of His characteristics.
I woke up this morning refreshed with purpose in my mundane, often frustrating, life as a stay-at-mom. For now, I am content to continue running the race God has set before me and waiting on Him to show me the path marked out for me, wherever that path leads.
I am so grateful that God prepared me for this attack. Earlier this week one of my best friends who is also fasting right now (I am at the end of a 21 day fast) mentioned how she was experiencing spiritual warfare and earlier in the day I had talked about that very possibility with my own GMG group. The awareness helped me to identify what was going on in the moment when I was exhausted, frustrated and emotionally spent from a long, hard day. It makes perfect sense to me know. God has been teaching me so much lately and fasting has helped me to really focus. I can imagine that Satan has just been looking for an opportunity to strike and render everything I have learned useless by keeping me stuck in a pit of failure and hopelessness. He saw his opportunity last night when I was certainly vulnerable. Praise God for preparing me and equipping me with the truth I needed to get me through it!
This brings me to a few of the things I have been learning this week:
1) We act on what we choose to remember. Choose to remember who God is, what He can do, who you are, what you can do through Christ, and that the word of God is living and active in you! Fill your heart and your mind with Scripture. Read the psalms, listen to hymns, sing praise music. Journal the little moments of grace that you notice throughout the day. Remembrance with gratitude is the key to a Spirit-filled life!
2) Wisdom results from recognizing the brevity of life, and those who possess it make the most of their time by seeking God's will for their lives. Contrary to what I previously believed, making the most of my time is not packing my schedule in order to accomplish as many tasks as possible in a given day. Wouldn't Satan love to keep us so busy that we don't have the time to make the most of?! Wouldn't he love to keep us feeling guilty that we don't accomplish enough? Feeling discouraged that we are wasting our life if we aren't doing something every single second? What I have learned is that making the most of time literally means "redeeming" time which Ephesians 5 makes clear is accomplished by studying, meditating on, and applying God's word to our lives, continually looking for God's blessings and offering thanks, and submitting ourselves to others, serving their needs above our own. Quite a different picture than what culture leads us to believe. I personally refuse to waste another second of this brief life pursuing anything other than God's unique will for me.
3) Following God's will for your life requires total commitment and a singular focus. We must lay aside everything else. We must forget what lies behind; success, failure, our own selfish desires and even dreams. We must fix our eyes on the example of Jesus. We must pursue with zeal the prize of an eternal crown of life, righteousness, and glory.
4) I cannot bring about the work of the Spirit, therefore, prayer is vital! I covet God's favor in my daily tasks, particularly regarding the raising of my children. I had a particular revelation this week that no amount of training on my part will produce godly fruit in my children. They might learn to behave correctly, but what a tragedy if I work so hard and still miss the opportunity to see true fruit of the Spirit in them. I regularly pray for them in general and I regularly pray for specific fruit in my own life, but until this week have been shouldering the burden of producing righteousness in my children which is indeed a heavy burden and in fact, an impossible task. I cannot produce righteousness in my children, on the Spirit of God can do that, so I might as well remove that weight from my shoulders and get on my knees and beg for God to do it. "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm for us the work of our hands." ~Psalm 90:17
Much of what I just shared about what I have learned this week was revealed to me through in-depth study of the the following Scripture; Ephesians 5, Psalm 90, Philippians 3, and Hebrews 12:1-3. Additionally, Beth Moore's, Believing God Bible Study, has been a heavy influence.
Thanks for letting me share! What are you learning?
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