Keep Your Eye on the Ball ...

March Madness means something different in my life than for the majority of the rest of the world ... at least those individuals in the rest of the world who are sports-minded. I work in an accounting office, and we are slap dab in the middle of tax season. It gets rough. We are all tired and frazzled.

Last week was particularly tough for me. I only took my eye off the ball for a minute, but that was all it took, and I was out in left field. (Oops, I think I am mixing my metaphors, but you get the general idea here.......)

What happened to all that freedom I embraced this past December? I had to go and re-read my own post. Where did all my spiritual health (and mental health, for that matter) get off to? 

I lost sight of God's love, God's provision, God's purpose for me, and I focused squarely on my circumstances.

All too quickly, I found my mind wrapped in all the old self-defeating thoughts and attitudes of the past. Victimhood. It's always there ... ready, waiting, willing to cuddle and comfort the unsuspecting heart and mind. 

I was overworked. Stressed beyond my ability to cope well. My flesh had been super-sized. And my spirit was cowering in the corner, undernourished and weak. 

My super-sized flesh grabbed a megaphone and began to holler in my head: Did you see that? How can I get all this done alone? Did you see how this person looked at you? You messed that up. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah .......

Soon vain imagination jumped into the mix. It was a regular party up in my head. It made for a bad day that stretched into a bad week. 

Add to the mix some other unexpected personal circumstances, and by the end of the week I felt like all the life had been squashed right out of me. And for all practical purposes, it truly had been. I had allowed a mountain of circumstances to snuff out the light of hope in my heart. I forgot that I was part of a team, that I didn't have to handle life all alone. 

I spoke with a dear friend this past weekend, and after I'd shared all my woes and asked her to pray for me, I quipped lightly, "Well, if all this is coming against me, I'm either doing something very wrong or very right."

She chuckled softly and said she was sure the Holy Spirit would let me know. 

She was certainly right. 

The very next day, another friend shared this devotional with me: 

 From Sapphires, the teachings of Jonathan Cahn

How is your day going? You probably think that if things are going bad you are having a bad day and if things are going good, it’s a good day. But the Bible says something completely different. And it can change the way you live your life. Proverbs 15:15 says, "All the days of the downcast are bad, but a cheerful heart has an everlasting banquet."    Or, 'All the days of the downcast are bad, but a good heart has a never-ending banquet.'

In other words, it is not bad days that make the downcast heart. It is the downcast heart that makes all of the bad days. And it is not the continual banquet that makes the good heart. It is the good heart that makes the continual banquet. Get it?

If your heart is complaining, your days will be rotten. And if your heart is full of praise and thanksgiving, your days will be full and beautiful.  So... do you want a good day, a good week, a good year … a good life?  Stop seeking after a good day, and seek instead to have a good heart. Give thanks in all things, and praise to God, and your life will become an everlasting banquet.

TODAYS MISSION - No matter what is around you today, give God thanks and praise Him as often as you can, and you will have a never-ending banquet.

Psalm 42:11

The problem wasn't with the people around me. The problem wasn't having too much work to do. The problem was my very own heart. My heart was complaining. And the problem was with my very own eyes. My eyes were focused on circumstances, instead of on the Lord of my life, who walks right beside me through every possible circumstance I encounter. He is my Way Maker. He is my Victory.  He is my Peace ... my Redeemer ... my Rock ... my Shield ... my Strength ... my Safe Place. He is my all in all. 

At the risk of sounding irreverent, He is the Ball in my court. If I will keep my eyes on Him, we will make the winning basket every time!

The Face in the Mirror

Do you like who you see in the mirror? Sadly, I can honestly say that I used to hate the person who stared back at me from that reflection. I am fifty-five years old, and up until a few days ago, I didn't have much positive to say about the person I saw in my mirror every morning. I can trace the origin of my insecurity as far back as elementary school ... that feeling of not being sure of myself and how I fit into the world. 

I became a master of deception. There aren't many who knew how I truly felt about myself. I allowed a few precious people to slip past the cracks in my facade, but all except the most perceptive probably had no idea how I really felt about me. For years, I was even able to convince myself that I was just fine. I mean, it's just natural to struggle with self-esteem, right?  

I can still recall in vivid detail the first time serious rejection rocked my world. I was stunned, blind-sided, never saw it coming. That person was a safe place ... or at least that person had been a safe place, my protector, my champion. The hateful words that shattered my naivete' rattled around in my mind for years; they still attempt to rise from the ashes of my past at times.  

I felt impenetrable walls instantly rise around my heart. NO ONE will ever hurt me that way again. No way! The only person I can safely trust in this world is me. Self-protection. That too is only natural. And for years that's how I lived my life. 

The downside is that even I (the one who would have the most vested interest in doing a good job) did a lousy job of protecting myself. Countless poor choices, one after the other, chipping away at my sense of security, my sense of identity, my sense of self. Each time I deemed it safe to let down the walls a bit, safe to let this one or that one have access to my heart, I would again be disappointed by the reality of human nature. Another hole in my heart. And a bigger one in my head!

Eventually this truth prevailed: the only way to avoid rejection is to reject them before they can reject me. Oh, I might not actually reject them outright, but I lived armed and dangerous. Always on the defensive. At the first hint of negativity, my weapons were at the ready. I had a quiver full of various arrows: criticism, judgment, self-righteousness, resentment, sarcasm, the cold shoulder, the silent treatment, bitterness, unforgiveness ... just to name a few. 

You can't hurt me if I hurt you first, right? 

Wow! How in the world did I have any friends at all? you might be wondering. 

That's the saddest part. 

Every single one of these methods of self-protection can be employed by Christians and non-Christians alike. They are equal-opportunity solutions. They can be delivered in mean and hateful ways, OR they can be hammered home in sweetness. 

If you are feeling self-righteous (aka: self-deceptive, and sanctimonious) it might sound like this: "Oh, I just hate to feel this way. We really need to pray for so-and-so. Do you know what they did to me?" 

If you are just sincerely struggling, it can go like so: "Please pray for me. I am having a terrible struggle. I need to come to a place of forgiveness for..."

Sometimes the intent is to harm. Sometimes the motive is pure: Please, God, I just want to stop the pain and keep from being harmed anymore. 

No matter why or how, we should be clear on this fact: Harboring these kinds of thoughts and feelings is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die. (I have no idea who should get credit for this quote, but it fits too perfectly not to use it here. I Googled to find out who originally said it, and this is what I found: click here.) 

The honest truth of the matter is this: If we insist on protecting ourselves, if we wall off our hearts to avoid being hurt, if we reject others before they can reject us, eventually we will reject ourselves. We will grow to hate the person we see in the mirror every morning. And that's no way to live. 

How do I know? I lived it. 

You see, I gave my heart and my life to Jesus Christ when I was twenty-five years old. He has been my Savior since the day I prayed and asked Him; my eternity in heaven has been secure. I am saved, but I haven't been truly free. 

I haven't trusted God to protect my heart. I've remained staunchly in control of my life and who could or couldn't get close enough to cause me hurt. That's not to say there has never been pain. As I said above, I haven't always done such a good job of protecting myself.

Jesus has been my Savior, but He was Lord only in select areas. For the thirty years I've walked with Him, I really saw little problem with that. But I had a lot of questions. Why does this or that keep happening to me, Lord? Why can't I find the victory?

And as the years have passed, the Holy Spirit has faithfully helped me, little by little, to pry my fingers off the steering wheel of my life, and He plucked the last one away a couple days ago. 

Over the past ten weeks, I've been part of a Bible study called Freedom, and it culminated in a retreat this past weekend. At that retreat, so many things happened. One of the most significant for me was a newfound freedom; and that freedom came through surrender. I will no longer insist on protecting myself; I will trust God to protect me. I will no longer insist on staying in control; I will yield myself to the Holy Spirit and let Him lead me.

If you have seen yourself in anything I shared above, you might want to pray a prayer similar to the one I was led to pray:

Dear Father, 

I confess that I have not allowed You to be Lord of my life. I have tried to control people and things. Please forgive me. I have allowed a spirit of rejection to permeate my relationships with others, and I have even rejected myself. Forgive me. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am created in Your image. If I reject me, I reject You. I will no longer give that spirit of rejection access to my mind or my heart. I tell you, rejection, that you must go; you no longer have any legal right in my life. Fill me, Holy Spirit, with Your love, with Your life, with Your truth. Use me to carry that love and truth to others. 

Amen