Playing the Clown

Why is it so hard for me to accept that God does not need me? I mean, over the past three weeks I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get things done. I am exhausted emotionally, physically, and spiritually...emphasis on the emotional.

There is nothing wrong with being busy. Business is a part of life. But my "business" is self-inflicted as a way to find identity. Let's backtrack here for a second...

June 10th: I lose my job (I asked for a part-time position, they don't have any available...bummer).
June 12-15th: I go to the beach with my husband.
June 16th-19th: I clean and organize at home.
June 20th: I jump both feet into a new job.
June 21-24th: I eat, drink, and sleep this new job.
June 25th till now: I have tried to juggle being a pastor's wife, business woman, heath nut, family person, and a believer. I am a bad juggler. I am exhausted.
Honestly, the downhill spiral effect happened after I lost my job. I placed my identity, my confidence, and my pride in my job. No job. No identity. Insert downward spiral. Pathetic, but true (and it sucks that the way that I process is by writing...now all of you know my secret battles. Crap).

You know you are placing your identity in something/someone other than Jesus Christ if you are playing a clown at a circus and juggling. God never meant for us to "juggle" our lives. What is that verse in Matthew 11:28? "My yoke is easy and my burden light." Nothing in there about juggling, anxiety, exhaustion. Just "easy" and "light". Must be nice.

In 2 Chronicles 20, I read that King Jehoshaphat (crazy name) is in a war that he knows he will not win...on his own. He turns to God and cries out for help: "You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand You...We are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You." Wow. To have the courage that Jehoshaphat had to admit that he was nothing apart from God...

Here is God's response: "Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God's...You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you."

I love that word "tomorrow". Why? Because today and the past few weeks I have skrewed up. I have thought that God needed me...because I need to be needed. Feel me? I have so many fears and insecurities that I try to temper by being needed, which in my mind is a sure way to evade abandonment. Then I read this by A.W. Tozer: "This truth [that God is self-sufficient and needs no-one], while a needed rebuke to human self-confidence [ouch], will when viewed in its Biblical perspective lift from our minds the exhausting load of mortality and encourage us to take the easy yoke of Christ and spend ourselves in Spirit-inspired toil for the honor of God and the good of mankind. For the blessed news is that the God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension stooped to work by and in and through His obedient children...In the meanwhile our inner fulfillment lies in loving obedience to the commandments of Christ and the inspired admonitions of His apostles. 'It is God which worketh in you.' He needs no one, but when faith is present He works through anyone."

Why faith? Because I have to have faith that God is going to come through for me. Unbelief, Tozer says, is a deadly sin because I am believing in myself, not God. Do I really believe God has got this...whatever the "this" may be in my life at any given time? If so, I will allow Him to dictate my day ("Spirit-inspired toil for the honor of God") and I will be freed up to love and to serve other people ("the good of mankind").

Rest: a word so foreign to me, but the obvious mark that a person has surrendered to the Self-Sufficiency of God and has placed all faith in the fact that God is sovereign and can be trusted and will come through for those Who wait on Him.

Okay...time to put my money where my mouth is. Clown make-up is coming off.