While it’s a common phrase…”don’t sweat the small stuff”…and it’s something we should all strive to implement, I believe it would behoove us to take that a step further.
Oh, and lucky me! It seems I have had a crash course this year in learning to notice, and appreciate, the small things. Deliberately choosing to take my eyes off all that is not the way I feel it should be and focus on the many little, seemingly insignificant things that are perfectly right.
And it is changing the way I see my day, my surroundings, my life.
You see, it’s all about perspective.
I realize I say this a lot, but I truly believe it.
And to re-emphasize its importance in my life, God drove it home in the prophetic word I got from my facebook buddy a few days ago, check it out: “Just sit back and watch the cool things God wants to do to provide for you. Truly, perception is everything. A glass half-empty is the same as a glass half-full, yet so different according to how it’s perceived. As long as you move forward in the conviction that the Lord will always provide for you, you will continue to see true prosperity as a result. Expect to see God’s generosity, and you will see it more clearly.”
Isn’t that just astonishingly cool? Yeah. He loves me!
So this morning, after my precious boy {very almost 4 months old} had slept 8 hours {something Ali didn’t do until she was well over a year old}, I got up to nurse him and instead of hitting the sack again afterwards {so as to milk every last ounce of sleep I possibly could out of the night}, I sat down with a cup of tea and my favorite devotional and preceded to weep my eyes out.
Side note: Ken Gire {auther of “Moments with the Savior”} has a way with words that will leave you completely and utterly speechless.
If you don’t fall in love with the Jesus written about in this book, well…you must be reading a different book.
You feel as though you are right there in the moment, smelling the mingled splatter of blood and sweat, hearing the passionate chants of the angry Jewish leaders, feeling what Mary must have felt looking up at her beloved son dying a gruesome death on a Roman cross, tasting the bittersweet prayer of a Savior taking his last breath.
This devotional will knock your socks off, blow your mind and melt your heart all at the same time! Its so good!
Back to the itty, bitty things {as clearly…that is not one of them!}
I so enjoyed sitting in a {seldom} quiet house…mom and dad were already up in Alma for the day, Becks spent the night out, and my 3 loves were all fast asleep.
While simple and small…it was HUGE to me this morning. It almost felt magical. The sun was hitting the snow in the trees outside…the snowflakes being blown gently off the treetops glistened as they wafted to the ground. Not a sound in the house. Just me. My cup of tea. And Jesus.
It is obviously a rare thing that I get a chunk of time to sit down and spend quality time focused on scripture. Unfortunately this is not always because of how busy life can be, but because I just don’t make enough of an effort to put my spiritual life before other less important things in my life.
And, quite honestly, sometimes I just don’t want to slow down enough to do it. Its often a real struggle between my flesh and my spirit. But I’m always so thankful when my spirit wins.
I need to work on this! Again. As always.
Wonder of wonders…I even got a shower in after my quiet time. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. Tea down, tank filled and clean…I felt like a new woman!
So, newly charged about how vital this time truly is for me – and how instrumental it is in setting the tone for my attitude and ultimately my day – I want to make a point of doing this more often.
Again.
It’s been a struggle my entire life to set apart quality time to spend focused on God, listening to His heart for mine, and was associated with such mega feelings of guilt and failure that I just threw in the towel for a while. I didn’t even try anymore. I was so tired of trying…and failing. Starting to read through scripture in a year…and dropping out {again} in mid-February.
I just seemed to suck at being a Christian.
And I know that I’m not the only one who wrestles with this stuff {especially for those who grew up in Christian homes}.
One gets tired of feeling like a dismal failure. 15 years of feeling this way doesn’t make for good devotional time associations.
And then my happy {read: exhausted}, comfortable {read: stiff} little world changed.
I encountered my ‘Papa’ in a whole new, wildly freeing, refreshingly different way…at the shack.
However controversial it may have been amongst the Christian world, reading The Shack played an enormous part in me being released from the heaviness of expectation I always assumed was a part of being a Christian. It was the single most powerful tool in taking my walk with the Lord from stiff and blah to free and exciting.
I often pick it up and read a few select pages when I’m in need of a break from the religiosity that so easily entangles my heart and mind.
Christianity seems to have become so much more about shoulds and shouldn’ts, about stale, legalistic religion…than it has about freedom and joy in Christ. What a sad, sad situation. No wonder no one wants what we have. I’m not sure I would if I was on the outside looking in.
No wonder the world seems to choke down Christianity in order to get to the Christ they so desperately need in their lives. It’s like downing the icky seaweed shake in an effort to absorb the rich nutrients it boasts within.
I want to encounter, on a daily basis, this radical God I know lives within me. I see His fingerprints on my life and I love the astonishing beauty He’s brought from the pathetic ashes of my life {another post for another day}.
This is what I so desperately want. What I so desperately need. What we all need!
Life. Glorious LIFE. Life to the fullest. The way He intended it to be.
Its quite simple really. It’s us who complicates everything.
{Wow.}
I guess I’ll hop down off my soapbox now.
So apparently today’s journal is not in fact about the “little, itty, bitty things” as originally intended, but rather about the deep, nitty, gritty things.
Sorry. False advertising. I know.
Maybe tomorrow?
Or.
Maybe not?
Guess we’ll have to see, won’t we!
{But you did get two great book suggestions out of the deal}
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