Checklists and Ropes Part 2

In the previous post, I spoke of “performance bases acceptance” in another season of life….

I know that I spoke of this in my November 17th entry, and I feel like I have learned so much about this even since then…”performance based acceptance” can squeeze the life out of you at anytime in your life. Now, continued…..

People questioned me, thought I was crazy. Those friends in the teaching profession seemed to understand better than anyone. But I had to…the Lord confirmed it over and over in His word and through prayer. I had been released and I finally was hearing it. HE would provide, He always met our needs. I had to quit looking at those carrots at the end of that list.

It has been three months. I believe that God actually rescued me. He saved me. I did not know how bad off I was until now…I feel like ME again. I love to encourage and believe I am gifted to do so by our Heavenly Father. But in the last two years I was “encouraging” others in my own strength.

God never left me. But I couldn’t hear Him. I was overwhelmed. Now I know that there are jobs that do that to you. If you are a “performance based” person like me, you cannot just shake it off and do your best. “Don’t take it so seriously” I would hear. “You need to leave your work at school like me.” “You are over the top, give it a rest.” “Why do you do this to yourself?”

I HAD to do my best. I was a Christian and HAD to act like one…. I HAD to help the general education teachers since they were under such pressure. I HAD to consult the parents and talk and try to explain many things to them about their special child. I HAD to teach the students, but was limited in time and technique. Not to mention my family and friends outside of work who needed my encouragement. But the life was literally being squeezed out of me. God showed me! I saw myself wrapped up tighter and tighter! The only way for me to survive was to just cut the rope off before I died from suffocation.

I don’t know what my immediate future holds. I am crafting and selling wreaths,studying, writing three blogs and healing. I am hearing from God again. I am taking the time to listen. I have the time to listen. It seems to me that the enemy’s best tool in our demise is our “being too busy”.

So, I share this to maybe be an encouragement to you, wherever you are. If you are like me, give something up that occupies your time. You may not quit your job, but there may be something that you can put down that is suffocating you. There may be a ministry you are involved in because you “have” to be involved in it! Ask the Father to show you the way of rest. Often times I was “Jack of all trades, master of none.” I know that GOD equips us in ways that are unbelievable, but we must be able to do them in His strength and not our own.

The Lord wants us to live an abundant, grace filled Christian life. He wants us to REST in HIM. HE wants that for us so that we will share HIM and His joy and peace with others. HE wants us to share that He is the gift of life, eternal salvation. Trust me when I say, if you are empty, have no joy…people won’t want what you have. You have no hope to give them.

Hebrews 4:1-3
“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said…”

Rest in this New Testament passages means: eiserchomai and it is a verb. It means to come in, entrance into any condition, to arise, come into existence, to come into life.
Stay with me……What hit me is that it does not have a future tense”helper” verb in front of it. So it doesn’t say “will enter”, “might enter”. For believers in the Lord Jesus Christ…we enter that rest NOW. Oh yes, metaphorically the word means that we will have rest after the trials on earth are ended….but we can choose that REST now.

***personal drawing purchased from and created by Derek Hegstead, 1993***