“We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith…”
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Today is a Saturday and Cody’s here and I’m making cinnamon rolls and Abi is playing in the sand. It’s a sweet day, and I could just enjoy it. But I’m distracted by what’s looming ahead.
Cody’s leaving Tuesday for a week-long trip to a bush location. In a month or two, he’s planning a trip to the States for his Kodiak training. He’d be gone for a month.
Right now, I’m fighting a cold, not sleeping great, and worried about handling just this next week well without him. I’m still new here. I still find walking my toddler to the market in the afternoon heat and keeping him out of the road while I buy veggies in another language…overwhelming. I rely on that hand-off when Cody gets home, and I’m tempted to compare and feel discouraged when it comes to parenting Abishai without the back-up. Cody would do a way better job, I tell myself. You can’t be all that Abi needs. He’ll be worse off for having spent all that time with just you, especially if you’re not feeling 100%.
This month, I’m going through a Bible Study called “TruthFilled” by Ruth Chou Simons. One of her main points so far has been this: You are your own biggest influence. No one talks to you more than you do. How vital is it, then, to make sure that what you are saying to yourself is the truth?
This week, the challenge was to describe some of the worries I currently feel and then confront those emotions by drafting a mini-sermon to myself with the truth I already know, but need to work at rehearsing. Here’s what I came up with:
I don’t need to worry about my performance. I don’t need to dwell on all the things coming up and how I will meet them. I don’t need to be fearful because my body is not doing well and the demands are more than I can meet. Christ holds all creation together and that includes me and my life. (Colossians 1:17)
I can see the challenges and still look at these coming days with hope and expectation, and here is why:
“…We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord and your lives will produce EVERY KIND of good fruit. All the while YOU WILL GROW as you learn to know God better and better.”
–Colossians 1:9-10, emphasis mine
It’s a prayer laying out what God alone is able to accomplish, what a maturing believer who continues to pursue a knowledge of God, even in their frailty, can look forward to and expect.
I will grow. My life will honor and please God, and I will produce every kind of good fruit as I develop in my knowledge of God’s will and spiritual wisdom and understanding, getting to know Him better and better. And that wisdom? That knowledge of Him? It is not a place I can climb to. It is a gift to those who ask.
“If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and HE WILL GIVE IT TO YOU. He will not rebuke you for asking.”
–James 1:5, emphasis mine
Even the next verse in James 1 brings it back to this one simple thing: “be sure your faith is in God alone.” I am not called upon for my work, my discipline, or my understanding. I am asked to offer my faith.
“This is the only work God wants from you: believe in the one He has sent.”
And so, that which I am asked, I can most certainly do. I cannot know ahead of time what will happen or how to meet it. I cannot heal my body or perform perfectly. But I can trust Him. And that is my job. And as I trust Him, He gives me wisdom and understanding. And as I grow in wisdom and understanding, my life produces what He desires. All I am yearning for in my life springs as the outflow of a heart that decides to believe Jesus; to believe His work, to believe His words, and to depend only on Him, for this next moment, and the one after that.
There are tasks and challenges coming up that I don’t feel ready for. But my first priority is to trust the Lord. And I do that, even as I approach these things, by choosing not to worry. I choose to believe He will take care of me when I get there.
And when it comes to parenting Abishai without back-up? I never had a prayer of being what he needed anyway. Who he needs is not me. But it’s not Cody either. It’s Christ. And Christ lives powerfully in me, still faithfully cultivating growth, producing transformation, and holding out all the hope we need. I am never parenting all alone. Always, I carry about within me the treasure Abi most needs to take hold of.
Christ is sufficient for me. Christ is sufficient for him. Christ is sufficient for today. Christ is sufficient for tomorrow.
And when I do the work of deciding to believe it, He does the work of putting my heart at rest so that I can enjoy cinnamon rolls, breezy Saturdays, and my laughing, sandy toddler without any fear for tomorrow, next week, or any day after.
dig deep | draw close 
I do feel for you. I know how hard it is to juggle everything. One thing I wish I could “do over” is understanding the difference between my primary ministries which were not optional (husband and kids) and my secondary ministries which were optional (everything else). Had I understood the difference and became “all in” with my primary ministries (like a horse with blinders on) that’s when I believe God would have been able to then bless the optional ministries He also graciously brought into my life. But because I had it flip-flopped, much of the work He wanted to use me to do in the heart of my husband and children never happened. No one could be me in my family. I was it. No one could do my ministry. But I didn’t realize that. Now I am reaping what I sowed. Since my heart was always elsewhere, dreaming of bigger and better things, when the dust of time has settled over a lifetime, the grown-up bonds I now so desire and value and see in other families, are just not there to the degree I wish they were. I didn’t realize that the two-year-old I saw as a burden instead of a blessing, would actually affect our relationship 20 years later in reverse. Now shopping with Mom was seen as a burden instead of a blessing. Unfortunately, husbands and kids pick up on when they are just “placeholders” until more important stuff comes along. And while God has been gracious and I know my family loves me and I them, I do wonder what might have been, had I been “all in.”
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