So I asked for reminders to expound on this idea that the answer to all of life’s struggles is not a plan of action or staying motivated; it’s relying fully on God. Thank you for the nudges. I probably would have let it go otherwise. I considered letting it go anyway.

 

Part of why I don’t care to explain or expand is that I know how faltering my own life has been and how I fail to bear this out. In many ways it seems like this is all really idealistic and not practical. The “how” is not so easy to explain. But I will try.

 

If I rely on God for all things — whether I eat, drink, or whatever I do (1 Cor 10:31) — my choices are different.

 

When I get up in the morning and I am relying on my own tricks to get myself out of bed (set the alarm across the room, turn on lights), I can still end up back in bed. I’ve been doing that lately, to be honest. For the past few days when my 6am alarm has gone off I haven’t been so exhausted that I just can’t stay up, but the bed seems so much nicer (I prefer the immediate and exchange the true God for what seems more expedient) so I have crawled back in bed and enjoyed the lie of “just a little bit longer”.

 

If I wake up relying on God, He will not allow me to crawl back into bed. His call so strongly beckons that I don’t even know how I miss it on those days that I’m not listening. Relying on God for my motivation, strength, and understanding of reality — I see the lie for what it is. That extra hour in bed is not going to fix anything. It isn’t even appealing in comparison to the thought of spending time with God.

 

Packing lunch doesn’t seem worth the effort when I am not conscious of God’s part in it. When I consider how God would rather I spend my (His, really) money and what food best fuels this body He made, packing a lunch is not even negotiable. Going through a drive thru loses its appeal when I realize how blantanty ungrateful it is to fill my stomach with trash and throw away money that could be used to bless others.

 

As I write these things I am seeing how essential it is for us to preach to ourselves and let others preach to us on a daily basis. If I had been thinking about all this for the last few days, I would not have let the laundry pile up and my Bible study left undone.

 

What does the laundry have to do with God? In a way, nothing. It’s not a sin to let the laundry pile up. But what blesses my family more: running out of clean clothes or having a steady supply of clean clothes to wear each day? It’s nothing worth beating myself up over, but if I’m relying on God I won’t miss those moments where I can throw a load of clothes in wash, because He will have me considering others instead of consumed with my own fruitless thoughts.

 

That is the most amazing thing to me: I can fall short and still be loved. A couple of years ago I wrote in my journal I don’t want to be lauded for being ‘good’; I want to be seen as the total wreck I am and still loved. I believe God alone offers that. But I think we can do better for each other as Christians by following His example. I don’t want to offer “Jesus loves you anyway” as a flippant sort of answer to someone’s honest struggle.

 

And how that paragraph relates to the rest of it, I don’t know, but I needed to say that.

 

So I am learning that all these tools I’m picking up about parenting and homemaking lately are . . . just tools. It is God who works in us to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Phil 2:13). Without His working in me, I will surely fail even if on the outside I seem to be succeeding. We must make God alone our refuge, our rock.

 

 

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.