Sick and Tired

            This fall I’ve been sick and tired--physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Did you ever get that way?

            The odd thing is that I didn’t realize it. Other people did, but I didn’t. Not until a relentless headache and a sinus infection sent me to the doctor did I start to unpack my life piece by piece. Then I realized what I had been doing to myself.

            There’s a funny line from the movie Sleepless in Seattle that I say about myself because it’s symbolic of how I tend to live life. The main character of the story absentmindedly says she can add something to her schedule because she’s already planning to be in New York. In other words, what’s one more thing to do?

            I think if I hadn’t screeched to a halt, I’d have ended up in the hospital.

            Were the things I was doing wrong? No. In fact, many of them were very good things. And that’s where things get fuzzy for me. Serving God, working, working, working for God. Good, right? Well…

            Then I attended a women’s holiday dinner. The devotional that evening addressed stress. How in the world did that speaker know my life? She didn’t. She knew stress herself. When she asked her audience to share how to fight stress, I ventured a suggestion: It’s okay to say “no.” Interestingly enough, the audience applauded. Not because they knew me but because they knew themselves.

            We can’t say no, but we want to. And, we want to know that it’s okay to say no, because it hardly ever feels right to say so.

            I’d gotten to the point where I even felt like God “wanted a piece of me.” I knew that was wrong.  God didn’t want a piece of me; he wanted all of me. Not to work for him until I was exhausted and sick but rather to guide my life so I did what he wanted me to do, not what I thought he wanted me to do. I had gotten confused and added things to my life and let other people help me add to my list as well.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be very good at telling the difference between an earthly sounding good agenda and God’s agenda, but at least this fall I don’t think those two were the same. How desperately I needed to lie down in some of those green pastures and beside those still waters so he could restore my aching soul (Psalm 23: 2-3).

            I’m still working at slowing down and trying to listen to God more to hear his agenda. Slow doesn’t come naturally after years of practice speed-living. The green pastures and still waters are increasingly appealing, so I’ll work at a more moderate pace to keep step with my Pacesetter. Maybe as time goes by I’ll get the hang of it, but I’m not going to race to get there. It’s a journey.