Pushing Through

Some days you feel like you just can’t do enough—Cleaning the house, trying to gain order and discipline in your home or your habits, trying to spend enough time with God and each of those you love, serving others, etc.

Something is always left undone despite your best efforts. Sometimes you even lose your cool under the frustration of it all or grow disappointed in, even condemning, yourself for your slip-ups. Could God ever really use a hot mess like you? Will you have made a positive impact when it’s said and done?

Remember this during those times– Jonah only had ONE mission- to “deliver a message”. Yet in all four books, he is whining and frustrated and doesn’t display the attitude you’d expect to find in a mighty believer. He is depressed. He runs, avoids God, and is shown practically kicking and screaming the whole way.

Throughout that time, God is also seen beside him, chasing him down, nudging him, encouraging him, providing for him every step of the way. –Sometimes in mind-blowing ways. In the end, Jonah delivers the message. He is successful! Even with all of the extra work, 'flares', and discouragement that Jonah felt, the Lord was able to use him. He just had to push through and depend on God.

**

Whatever you’re facing today, know you’re not alone. Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and HE will make your paths straight. <3 Peace be with you!

Photo Credit: http://foundationsofmyfaith.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html 

The Vessel Might Break | Jonah Part 5

Joseph Mallord William Turner 'Ship in a Storm', c.1826

Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose

that the ship threatened to break up. –Jonah 1:4

When we hear so many messages about God’s grace and mercy, it often makes it difficult to understand passages where God sends disaster, storms, and evil spirits. How could a good God be so mean and cruel? Yet Psalm 119:75 says that it is in faithfulness that the Lord afflicts us.

As you might know, that “affliction” can be so strong it might seem like nothing will be able to withstand or survive it. We see that in Jonah. He, himself was running and hiding. The men were freaking out and even the ship, the vessel holding it all together, was on the edge of breaking. Another image that I love from this is that the thing taking the hardest hit isn’t actually the part with the problem. It’s just the vessel that the Lord used to send his message and correction.

The same was true in my case. Work might have been where I felt the most pressure but that is where we spend most of our day. Behind the scenes many other things we’re also going on. I felt led to leave my church of 10 years without really knowing why. My husband’s uncle passed away. Except that Michael was more like my own uncle or a member of my immediate family. Not only was he my neighbor, he was an incredible influence on my life.

My own mother, who was my only relative in Virginia, went through her own struggle; made some radical changes and moved back home to Florida very unexpectedly. There were some other shifts that took other members of our family away. Even our animals had grown old enough to start dying off.

Meanwhile, my husband seemed to be going through his own storm. His job was up in the air. His truck died. His father still battling cancer. Colin, himself, struggling with his own illness. In 10 years, his neuropathy had seemed to reach a new level. I had never seen him in so much pain. Being in pain is one thing but it also impacted what he could accomplish and it limited how he could spend his time, which affected him on another level. While he is incredibly strong and never complained about the things that he was going through; I feared for his life but also his spirit. How could someone - anyone- handle the pressure of so much pain and discouragement, without getting defeated?

Then here’s his wife having some sort of mid-life crisis. In a season where I could barely help myself, I couldn’t even seem to help him or vice-versa. We were both incredibly angry. Not at each other but we’re married, it gets taken out that way sometimes. We were both just trying to hold on.

Aside from church and my family, my position at work was like the last deeply personal thing in my life that I identified with. …and was committed to. Dependent on. After all, between the two of us, my job was the one we relied on. I was the one with benefits and Colin couldn’t go without them.

For those of you who didn’t know me “back in the day”, many things in my life used to be temporary. Jobs, boyfriends, houses… I was very “any way the wind blows”. When we got married and I started this job and picked out my church; I decided to “grow up” and so I made a bunch of rules. I was going to learn how to be rooted.

In fact, I was imagining being one of the elders at the church and starting a mentoring program between the different generations of women. Now I was a manager at my job. I was indeed rooted. All of this “uprooting” felt very hand-picked and personal. Maybe like an affliction that we noted in the beginning.

Don’t get me wrong. While I know it’s a bleak picture and it even felt that way going through it. Much good came from this season. When I could never seem to catch up with anyone socially or even make it to regular Bible Study at church, I began leading Bible Studies at work over lunch and also at home. (Praise)

I also quit drinking, which was another thing that I didn’t understand when I was going through that change. I didn’t feel like I had a “problem” at the time but I was haunted by the need to put it down. In hindsight, I probably would have depended on it too much when the storm finally came through. –With the exception of 2 toasts to Michael, I will have been sober 2 years this month. Wahoo! (Thanks God!)

I've shared before about my struggle with insecurity, which might have been magnified and even misinterpreted as I wrestled with my intuition. That struggle was intensified after the promotion but hopefully because impurities were getting burned off. I had to have some hard conversations [in all areas] and I had to make decisions without much time. Both things I was terrified of doing 'wrong’ but pushing through, made me realize how much more I really could do. It changed me. I started becoming more assertive in other areas too. 

By default, I am the type of person that always likes to go and be busy and do. Yet, between Colin’s sickness and this storm, I was getting reprogramed and my life was getting reprioritized. I found myself needing to be home (without anyone requesting me to do so or my ability to explain why). It was really hard to tell if I was withdrawing for the right reasons or becoming too self-absorbed/self-contained. But then every time I tried to step out, plans fell through or kids were sick. In many ways, I felt isolated. That is, until I began to love stillness and solitude. I am not sure that I was spending enough time with my husband before this point either. So another positive was coming out of this new direction.

Through this season, making big decisions without really knowing the ‘why’ behind it was probably the most frustrating part for me. I mean, I like to know the reason. So I can justify it. Wasn’t I going to have to explain it to someone? To who? I mean what would people think? Somehow not being able to do either was providing a place for confidence to grow. Not just in God but in the person that God created me to be.

Jonah said the Lord’s “breakers” swept over him. It was as if, God, was using this season also to break all of my rules and dependencies on anything other than Him.

I distinctly remember making some mistake at work, which really wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things but it wounded me anyway because it was such an easy thing to take care of and I simply forgot to do it.

I was overloaded and tired and working as hard as I possibly could, trying to give it all my best. It just hurt that I couldn’t even be in control of my own memory, my emotions or my own results, etc. –and it struck me- control. All of this was about who was going to be in control. I could stay up late overthinking everything and work twice as hard when I was there; trying to be this twisted picture of perfect. –Or I could let go and stop trying to be the one holding my bits and pieces together.

I know that might come across arrogant. I make mistakes daily and I knew even then that I wasn’t the one holding anything together. But it didn’t stop me from trying. Isn’t there always one more thing that you and I must do or else the world will fall apart? It might be the reason you can’t stop too. But if we feed that appetite, there will always be one more thing.

“Okay so I won’t try to be responsible for everything.” and “I won’t let myself be the one to catch it.” I thought to myself. (and I hated it because I felt like I was quitting or giving up.) I walked into work the next day and started really trying to delegate more.

Except I still didn’t fully get the message. It would take almost eight more months. –Because the things that I hadn’t delegated, I was still trying to pride myself in.

What I mean by that was that I wanted security in what ‘I’ could do well. Remember when I had you imagine me on my knees barely hanging on to the deck of a boat. –Well at my lowest; when I was completely worn out from worry. Praying that God would show me how ‘I’ could have this conversation or how ‘I’ could get this result or how ‘I’ could make a difference, another “breaker” swept over me. 

None of this was about me or even what I could do through Him. It was all about Him and what He could do. I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t try to give God glory or consider others or do a great job. You should totally do all of those things. However, there was so much emphasis on ‘I’ that I missed the ‘He’… If only, I could trust His flow without putting so much pressure on the funnel of what was produced. After all, Psalm 62:5 tells us that our hope comes from Him. Psalm 46 says that He is our refuge and our strength. -ahem, security.

Looking back, I can see how sometimes our insecurity is because we’re not living true or aligned to something we value. Maybe a habit that you have struggled with is harder to be rid of because you’re not in the place that you’re supposed to be (or stay). It’s hard to absorb how both of those statements are exactly right, and yet also how you have to be in that exact place, in order to get the message. So it is the perfect place for the time.

I am willing to bet that someone else reading this is still struggling in an area because you need a life change or different perspective too. Not because something is good or bad or even wrong or right. Maybe you’re simply not the person that you used to be and now your life needs to reflect it.

***

So what about your storm? I don’t know if you’re ever been caught out in heavy waves at the beach. Maybe you’ve gone under or there’s an undertow. It pulls you one way, while you’re trying to come up and move another direction. The waves keep coming, one after another and you can barely catch your breath. You’re tossed around, maybe disoriented. It’s hard to get out of the place that you’re in. Sometimes, the current has to carry you a little upstream so you can get out. Boy, can’t spiritual storms can be the same way?

Like that boat, is it possible that your issue or the place you feel the most pressure, really isn’t the problem (like your marriage or your job or the circumstance)? It’s just your vessel. Ask yourself what you want the outcome to be in this scenario. Then ask yourself what the right outcome is? Yes, there can be a difference. What would it take to make the latter part happen? Many things might be out of your control. What can you do, even if it means that you need to change your schedule or implement something new, in order to get the important stuff taken care of?

You might be too drained to think that hard and so something that helped me a whole lot in this season was also making a list of where I was willing to “fail”. Yes, really. Think about what failure looks like to you. You really aren’t able to do it all and trying to keep up with that pace can cost us in the places that mean the most. If you can flesh out some tentative things that might get left undone, when time runs out, you’ll know in advance what needs to go.

***

It might be me, or even a 'coincidence' but throughout the Bible one of the most commonly referenced pictures used around the presence of God, is water. I can't look past that when I look at the book of Jonah. If you’re rooted in your vessel or your plans or your problem, then you miss what’s overboard. You can’t hide from the spirit within us. The deep calls to the deep. When we don’t listen to the swells and surges within, he sends along the wind. 

“God alone knows the way to Wisdom,
    he knows the exact place to find it.
He knows where everything is on earth,
    he sees everything under heaven.
After he commanded the winds to blow
    and measured out the waters,
Arranged for the rain
    and set off explosions of thunder and lightning,
He focused on Wisdom,
    made sure it was all set and tested and ready.
Then he addressed the human race: ‘Here it is!
    Fear-of-the-Lord—that’s Wisdom,
    and Insight means shunning evil.” -Job 28:23-28

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Down Below | Jonah Part 4

The Prophet Jonah Before the Walls of Nineveh
by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

In my last post, I gave a little bit more information about Jonah “before he got on the boat”. We also looked at a few examples of what running might look like in our own lives. Then I noticed something else in verse 5.

“But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.”

In other words, he withdrew.

Sometimes when you feel a storm be it a mood or an actual change. Don’t you have the tendency to withdraw? Some go to the bar. Some, like Jonah, return to their bed and try to sleep through it and some lose themselves in the tasks that we described in the last post.

Sometimes when you’re going through something, don’t you just want to get to the bottom of it? You withdraw from all other activities to analyze ‘this thing’. You're on a mission. You’re not trying to withdraw; you’re actually trying really hard to be present. –The purest and present self that you can be. “You just gotta get this thing worked out first…”

Let me quickly add that I don’t think all withdrawing is bad. Jesus went away on a mountain. A caterpillar goes away to transform into a butterfly. Good things come out of retreating.

But you need to be careful here because 1 Peter 5:8 also says “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” I do believe that you are more susceptible to spiritual attack when you remain isolated or withdrawn because;

When you’re alone, your story becomes the only one that you hear. -And let’s be honest, sometimes the story inside our head is a little out of focus. So, our responses to the situation get a little skewed as well. We need some interaction to help keep us from slipping too deeply into "our version".

But also, in that place of being withdrawn, you’re usually worn out. Whether or not you’re asleep or simply want to be. The first half of the verse in Peter says “Be alert and sober-minded.” When you’re weary, you’re not “alert”. You can even experience a little drunkenness from a lack of sleep. Then there’s sobriety from any “helpers” we might consider to “take the edge off.” When you’re not fully rested and “sober”, you’re exacerbating that “thought problem” and your emotional responses to it.

We see examples of Jonah's heightened emotions and exhaustion between these pages. It is assumed by other commentators that Jonah might have feared the Assyrians rising back up to overtake Israel. We know that in Chapter 4 he displays anger at the Lord for showing mercy to them. This is most likely because he had "stewed" in his frustration and fear of them for so long. Any of us can admit that happens more when we're alone. Whether or not he had wanted to die when decided to go overboard, he had convinced himself that suicide might be "the only way out" of his misery because running and isolation didn't work!

Whether or not you think that's true, it is what happens next.

"Jonah and the Whale Bible Story" by Dennis McGeary

So I ask you to consider, if you feel the need to withdraw for any reason but particularly during a storm, could you be running from something as well? If so, try to identify any fear(s), especially if you can’t stop what you're doing, and then ask yourself why that might be important. Jot it down.

This is kind of a sidebar but it's an important one. Sometimes this thought process can become an obsession or an addiction. You might not know how you get there. You might not see any way out. You might choose to steep yourselves in scriptures trying to combat it. While that must be better- is it really? 

I am not saying that scripture doesn't have power. The Bible plainly tells us to meditate on His Word and that scripture IS our greatest weapon of defense. I learned what I am getting ready to tell you by being in this place and meditating on scripture. So YES, there is power in it but also hear this with your heart-

If you're allowing a thing to isolate you or to control your moods and thoughts; and if even the scriptures that you meditate on have to be about your problem, you're getting sideswiped by something else and it is called worry.

When you give something else that much power over you, it can become an idol [limiting your view of God] and inadvertently, you can let it devour you. 

Pastor Fred Michaux of City Life church said: "You will never have dominion of any appetite of your body until you make fasting a regular part of your diet". If you've gone, like Jonah, down into the deepest part of your storm, I challenge you to fast from that place and come up for air and out into the light. Practice putting it down.

Aside from that, just because you’re running / withdrawing, doesn’t mean that it’s only affecting you. -No matter what you might tell yourself. Look around you and then back at Jonah. The men were throwing stuff off the boat while Jonah was asleep because his resistance turned pure chaos. Ahem, calamity. The point is, it's likely that everyone around you is affected by what you're going through, even if they’re not sure yet what it is or that you have something to do with it. 

***

Storms don’t always look like the message in Jonah. Sometimes we’re homesick. Sometimes our parenting skills reveal to us that we don’t know all that we think that we do. Sometimes we need to have a conversation with our spouse or maybe there’s sickness, adultery or addiction. Storms come in a variety of ways but perhaps our responses are really kind of the same. Even when we try to justify that we’re not on a boat and haven’t fled the country.

The storm comes to reveal what we’re afraid of and sometimes it takes something that we hate to reveal it. But keep in mind that Jonah was challenged with delivering the truth. Is it also possible that some of your own “truths” need to be a little challenged here as well?  

Everyone in this picture; the Assyrians, the men in the boat and Jonah needed a different perspective about God. Could He really be -even bigger- than what our view and "allowances" make of him too? After all, isn't that why we sometimes think that we can take things into our own hands? -And don't storms often come and clear the air?

And yes, there's more.

[To be Continued]

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