I wrote this blog post about a month ago…and, well, March 15th is the day after the day after tomorrow.
Today a friend posted a motivational word photo which read, “Don’t be Afraid of Change.” Umm, we are on the precipice of change, like uber, major, big time, anything goes type of change, and I, for one, can tell you, I am terrified. AND, in sync with the fear there’s an excitement and anticipation for whatever it is God has in store.
Change happens. It happens from the epic life choices of whether to believe in a good God, where to live, work, who to marry or not, if and when to have littles, friendships to build, causes to rally, to the mundane and more glamorous, “What ever shall I wear today?” or “What should I make for dinner?”
We cannot escape change. And as sweet as many of the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram quips are, I stand on God’s word for my motivational directives. Living words that lead me beside still waters, where His light is my guide, like living water to my thirsty soul. I’ll lean into Him, trusting He has my hand and knows the way and will lead me on the path. The fact that He said He’d never leave me or forsake me is assurance no human or organization can promise, yet here we are, on the edge of “what now?”
Jason said the other day, “It’s difficult to be patient, living one day at a time.” Yet the crazy thing is, this is exactly as we are supposed to live, one. day. at. a. time. And it got me thinking, “Why is it so hard to live one day at a time?”
There is a story in the Bible where a rich young man comes to Jesus and asks Him what he has to do to have eternal life. Jesus tells him and he says he already follows all those commandments. Then he asks Him if there’s something else he should do. Jesus tells him to go sell everything and then follow Him. He goes away very sad. Jesus then talks about how difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. Here’s the story in The Message.
My take on the story isn’t that having possessions is bad, but that possessions don’t leave a lot of room for margin and freedom in our lives. We lost a son. And Jason lost his dad and best friend. Though we have them, we don’t hold tightly to possessions, but rather treasure people. So, when we get a call to head out of town to meet friends or go dig a well in Africa or go help family or friends in need, or whatever it may be, if we have margin we can say, “Yes! Here we are! We are available.”
Right now we don’t have specific direction, but we know we must move forward to gain perspective. We do know our hearts long for margin and the ability to travel and do ministry as a family. We don’t want to have 4 different things going on: Jason’s thing, My thing, Em’s thing, Ry’s thing. We want to be able to do things together. So, the other night we made a list (for all you list-lovers) of what margin looks like and how we can start freeing ourselves up to be available to go wherever and do whatever.
In a few weeks we’re having a huge garage sale. Prior to that it means we’re all going through our stuff, closets, possessions, every room, the garage, every. single. corner of this house, and purging what will hopefully be 2/3rd’s of everything we own. We will add the money from the garage sale to a special jar we’ve been filling with the money we’ve collected on Craig’s List and eBay sales so far, as kind of a “dreams” jar. We trust God will show us what to do with it when the time comes. And we’ll donate things left and right. Yes, our house may be on the market sooner than later, but we aren’t sure about anything right now.
We’ll see. All I know is, change is scary, but it doesn’t mean we will allow fear to keep us from walking right on through the fire.
In the meantime, stress got the best of me today and in the midst of the unknown, I cleaned the spice cabinet…oh well, there’s always tomorrow!
If you don’t know what tomorrow holds, clean out the spice cabinet…
…at least you’ll be able to find the curry and ginger.
One response
Been feelings the need to be readY for margin myself. good stuff.