He Holds It All

Things have been very busy lately, to the point of being overwhelming. I have a tendency to want to try and juggle everything on my own. I think the problem is that I am able, to a certain extent, to handle a lot and hold a lot together. This subconsciously builds a confidence in my own strength, and before I know it, I'm not letting God do what he does best.

It's like the picture of Gus Gus in Cinderella, trying oh-so-hard to carry as many corn kernels as he can on his own, not willing to let any one kernel go. But eventually that makes him drop all of them, and he tries to pick them all up again, completely unaware of the looming shadow of Lucifer, his enemy the cat, growing over him. It's actually quite metaphorical. :-)

Last week I was praying and telling Jesus how tired I was of being tired and how I felt like I was drowning in the middle of a great storm. And then he stops me and says, "I am Lord over the wind and the waves. Why are you afraid?" Now, if you know me well, you know how ironic I find it that God would use my own metaphor in responding to me. It's like I forgot that Jesus is Lord over the storms. I'm like his cowering disciples waking him up and asking him why he doesn't care about the terrible storm. Then he continues, "If your eyes are trained on me, you will not sink. You are worried about many things, but there is one thing that comes first...and everything else will follow."

I had to repent of struggling along (rather badly, I might add) in my own ability and choose to let go and trust him to catch me. Pastor Dale said something last week about how perseverance doesn't just have to do with staying with it in the midst of difficulty; it has to do with staying with it in the midst of our own weaknesses. So even as I failed again and again every day to let God have control and to keep my eyes trained on him, I still needed to chase after his grace, to pursue his strength in the middle of my weakness. Psalm 37:23-24 talks about how "though [we] stumble, [we] will never fall, for the Lord holds [us] by the hand." And so I press on through the difficulty of this time and start every day seeking his perspective and praying that his praise will be continually on my lips.

He holds it all together.
He holds it all forever.

The Lord is my light
And my salvation in life.
I will not fear.
No, I will not fear.