Before I begin, to give you a picture of my normal life, which came to an abrupt stop one year ago to be precise, I felt in complete control of my life (never, ever a good thing). I began homeschooling my son, I worked my fulfilling and very part time career as a legal writer, I spent my time in various ministries, with my local MOPS group and entertaining friends and family. Then, I found out I was pregnant, which began a steady stream of illness lasting nine months. My life, once a very full and flowing river of energy and events and responsibilities, suddenly dwindled to a trickle. Combine that time with the birth of a baby, sprinkle in a little post partum depression and you have a time when I felt so discombobulated and tired that I couldn’t even hear anything Gd, let alone figure out what in the world the point of it all was.
In the midst of so many events during the last few months, and in feeling so overwhelmed with all that I want to do with my life despite feeling physically and emotionally incapacitated, I’ve felt like completely giving up and huddling in the corner with a good game of Angry Birds (Which thanks to my friend Kim, I just found out about a couple weeks ago, hee hee!).
But God has continued to speak to me in that still, small voice of His. One day while driving to one of my many destinations, I had so many ministry obligations running through my mind, so many people on my heart, and even home school was weighing on my mind that day. I kept thinking about all that I needed to begin implementing in my home school to train up my two boys and then thought about all the ministry opportunities I needed to take advantage of here in my little town and then all the phone calls and planning that needed to be done to do that. Uffda, my mind could not be stopped that day.
The thought that I will never have the energy, the time or the resources to accomplish all I dream of doing with my life is the recurring thought that endlessly and relentlessly plagues even my dreams. It becomes easy to conclude that you most likely will not be supplied with boundless amounts of energy to accomplish all the dreams you dream.
The thought that God so very clearly whispered in my ear was this: amongst all of life’s intricacies, entanglements, heartbreak, sadness, disillusionment and vicissitude, I must give my life, every single day, as a living sacrifice to Jesus, and the rest will take care of itself. I have no time to muddle through confusion, disappointment and mazes in my mind. I have no right to live my life as if it is my own, my life is a sacrifice to Jesus.
God allowed this thought to follow me through many busy days until I did take the time to really let it overtake me, and then, as usual, God sent me a message in my dreams.
In my dream, I find a container full of fish, which I find out are going to die if I do not rescue them. It seems as if they must be rescued because the water is contaminated and is seeping out of the container. So I begin to fill up a bathtub full of water to save the fish, and I begin scooping them out and putting them in the water in the bathtub. I frantically “fish out” all the fish and place them in the bathtub. In the midst of the fish transfer, I come to realize that some of the fish bite, but I have to put my hand in the water to make sure all the fish are out of the container, and the water in the container is dwindling fast. I manage to get all of the fish into the bathtub, but as soon as I get the last fish into the tub, I look and all the fish are dead, floating at the top. After rescuing all the fish, I conclude that the water in the tub is the same contaminated water in the original container.
I took this as Gd telling me that I need to make sure that in the midst of the changes he sends my way, I need to make sure to add new, fresh water, or nothing can survive. I felt that the secret to keeping fresh water is to keep my mind set in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 2:6 says that Gd has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms. We then live simultaneously in the heavenly and earthly realms, thus, we should think and act as if we have been lifted out of the muck that can so often complicate our lives on earth, because essentially Jesus has allowed us to be lifted out of it.
I thought of this dream in light of the bible verse in Matthew 7:24, in which Jesus says that we must build our lives on His words, the Rock. Building our lives on anything else is like building a house on sand; the foundation will eventually crumble. So I began to think about my life and my “foundation.”
Of course, my life is built on Jesus, of course it is. Right?
Well, while that may have been my initial response, when I really thought about it, I had to confess that perhaps there is a small part of my foundation that isn’t sitting on the Rock. Maybe that small part is sitting on the sand of my own desires and ability to keep everything under control.
I have no other parting words except that I hope that Gd continues to crumble anything in my life that is not built upon the Rock of Jesus, as painful as that may be.
