Thursday, February 19, 2009

DWELL

I just had to take a break from this series to record what happened today. I woke up feeling just... icky. Everything in my life is great right now. I have so so much to be thankful for.... God is doing so much in my life. He is filling me with so much passion & love & excitement. It has been such such such a great visit with MomMom & Papa. Our marriage is great. I am still on fire for Him and pursuing Him and He's pursuing me right back...but nonetheless.... I woke up heavy.

I woke up asking the question, "what's wrong? who's mad at who? What did I do wrong? is something the matter?".... it went into a total whirlwind of just attack..... which leads to things like ...how wrong I've been in my parenting skills.... How I need to do better at x,y,z..... is my heart even right? am I faking all of this? am I just a big joke?....

I was just heavy....

Maybe God had just pulled away a bit for what He wanted to show me next.... maybe some things had crept in between my relationship with God and I had allowed it and didn't ask God for help even though He showed me they were there and shouldn't be....

But I found myself journaling to God early this morning before Raymond woke up. He said to me --- Randi why do you dwell on the past so much and worry so much about things you might have done right or not? You go through every interaction every conversation every situation over and over again.... replaying what you did wrong, what you should do better next time. What started out as an awesome way to reflect over what things you learned and to learn from the past... is making you out to be a wreck.

It really is pathetic what I do. After every interaction/conversation Brandon and I have with other couples or something - I'll say, "Brandon did I say this right? Did I do this right? Should I do it [this way] next time? Did I sound alright? Did it come across right? Do you think they understood me when I said ____"

Poor Brandon. I am sure it drives him bonkers. Really it's nothing but WORRY. Over something I can't control. Anyway - I thought it was a good thing to do.... to figure out what I did right/wrong.... but if it leaves me feeling heavy, doubting, burdened.... it can't be good......so after I journaled those questions to God.... I just left it at that and continued on my morning......

I left it at that. Just asking Him to help me know if this is a good exercise to do or not....do I dwell on the past too much? Is there good that can come out of this replaying of interactions?

I then opened up Crazy Love and read the intro page prologue part.... talking about God's awesomeness & how huge & great He is.... and all of a sudden I felt His presence and I felt honestly crushed under how huge He was. I hate using that word crushed - but that's the only way I could describe it because it overwhelmed me so much I had to cower on the floor as flat as I could in just total reverence & awe of Him.... what came to my mind was Proverbs 31... "a woman that feareth the Lord"... not that I was 'scared' - but that I was in fear of Him. Trembling at Him. Revered by His presence and Hugeness. All I could get out was a throaty 'oh God'.... He was revealing me in a tiny way how HUGE He was. I believe He probably revealed to me a teeny little speck of how big He was. I am sure that if I saw any more of Him I would have been so rocked to my core I couldn't take it. So thank you God for knowing how much I could handle. We say we want to feel Him, see Him.... but even 1/10000000th of a little cell from one little mole on His one little pinky would blow us away. He reveals what we can handle now.... imagine when we see Him face to face?!?!?!

So anyway --- it certainly didn't get rid of my heaviness. I honestly didn't feel I could get out any words to Him. I felt I just needed to listen. I just felt so small & insignificant & weak & unworthy in comparison to perfect Him.... I did ask for some intervention though. My sweet friend Erin sent me a text... she said God sent her a word for me.... DWELL. As soon as I saw the word DWELL that was enough. I knew He was speaking to me. I had just asked Him about helping me not dwell so much on the past and dwell on how I do things, what I should better....... and He sent the word DWELL. I knew He was telling me to DWELL on HIM and things of Him.
The tears came instantaneously... I was focusing too much on me and my own efforts again.

Erin sent me some scripture.... and through each one God spoke His covering on me. To Dwell on Him and things of Him..... but even more than that... to dwell IN Him. He had revealed to me in such a real way just how big He was....... and then He showed me why He did it. He didn't impress on me how huge He was to scare me... not to make me fear Him.... not to show my smallness.... He showed me how huge He was to reassure me He could take care of everything. That I was protected by how huge He is. That I needed to release everything to Him. That I can simply do what I can --- and then give it to Him. That He was trustworthy, capable, reliable. That the Spirit can honestly take my efforts and take them so so so much farther than I could ever imagine. That He could work it all out and stretch out any effort I give and make it turn for the good.

Wow. all I could do was break out in praise.

Hallelujah! the Lord God almighty reigns. Holy, Holy, are you Lord God Almighty. Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. You are Holy!

God you are so huge. you are so worthy. Thank you for bringing me back to YOU. To the central message of leaning on YOU and YOU alone. That I don't have to dwell on anything but YOU. God I have always felt that is one of my strengths.... that I radically and foolishly didn't worry about details and believed you were big enough to do ANYTHING. Hope ful of optimism..... I am not sure what happened.... but I think because of the new roles & responsibilities that have been laid on us... I reverted back to old me of leaning on my own understanding. You reminded me once again that you don't need anything but me to allow YOU to work. To believe you can and will.

I needed to take the lessons He had been giving me --- about what is pleasing to Him ---- and really put it to work. That my love for Him is pleasing. That my heart is pleasing. That faith is pleasing... rather than any works, efforts or knowledge I might have felt I had acquired.

Do you believe in His hugeness? Do you believe in how much He can work things out with our 'little' offerings? That He can make every interaction & relationship & conversation turn for the good. We don't have to put so much pressure on ourselves. We can dwell on Him --- and He can work it all out.

God again --- I repeat from my last post --- help me make a royal mess of all this God. I'm going to make mistakes either way - so help me make them because I'm full throttle passionate for you. Help me make them.... believing in you to clean them up! Help me make them not looking back at them. Help me make them and not dwell on them!

There's a time for analysis, thinking over choices we've made, reflection.... but if I can't do that without beating myself up -- I just shouldn't recap it at all - and just ask God to reveal to me whenever He wants, what He wanted me to learn from that interaction/situation. Worrying & fearing about things that have already happened and are in the past..... is no good. I need to NOT dwell on the past but instead dwell on how God now has all of what has happened in His hands. He has the future!

Help me God just DO what I can and then RELEASE it to you!

I can give all things to Him and trust Him to handle it. He IS that powerful, that huge, that all-capable! :)

11 comments:

Dr. Russell Norman Murray said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr. Russell Norman Murray said...

Hi Randi Jo,

Heaviness and 'blue' days are part of life and due to spiritual and physical reasons I reason.

Study in Scripture and related books certainly assists, but a key for me has been to pray to the Lord respectfully and probably alone, being thankful but also praying as openly as possible, with negatives included. There is a peace in stating to God what we sometimes think as Christians we should not state to others.

Russ:)

Anonymous said...

Hiya Randi!

Not even God can change the past so don't get too caught up in it!
Grace wipes out the mistakes of the past and leads us into a brighter future.

The word fear is misused in scripture - check out it's true meaning, which I think you pretty much got hold of anyhow!

Lotsof love

Pops

carebear said...

Ha, should have come here and read this before posting my previous three posts...that all have to do with the past! Thanks for a new insight as usual. Love to ya. Hope your parents have a safe trip back home.

Anonymous said...

Randi,
I find that mornings are when the devil battles our minds the most. Just start talking to the Lord when you feel that way. You're a role model for me as a great mom!
Allison Davis

jeleasure said...

Hi Randi,
What you are describing reminds me of my Sociology project.

I did a study on Stress in different professions. During the innitial research to educate myself on the topic, I found that we are always cycling through the two types of stress.

There is eustress and distress.

Eustress is experienced in times of euphoria. Too much excitement and warm fuzzies will create an automatic response from the body to crash. This allows for other hormonal changes that are necessary for good healt, believe it or not.

Distress is opposite of eustress. And, the same will occur if we feel too much distress. The body will respond with automatic rushes of adrenalin or just plain giddiness.

Our dreams are often directed by the what type of stress is present. If we are experiencing distress, we have dreams which reflect this. However, the mind may also place you in a happy dream to counter balance distress.

We eventually arrive at an equilibrium but stay there briefly before crossing from one pole to the other.

Any way, don't worry about it. Just observe and acknowledge that you can see how wonderful the Lord made each of us.

Denise @ Sunflowers, Chocolate and Little Boys said...

This was a wonderful post. I can totally understand and relate. Last night I had one of those moments and God spoke to me. He wants us to give it all to him, and let him work it out. Praise God!

Anonymous said...

I think we women have a habit of this and just can't help it - God gave us this for a reason, maybe because we can handle it and turn it in to something amazing(?) :) Loved your post - hope your day is going great

Melanie said...

Great minds think alike!! :) My soul is on vacation today..I am resting in the Lord!! :)

Randi Jo :) said...

thanks to each of you so much! :) I hope your day is going well. in His love! :)

Anonymous said...

Greetings Randi,

What we are today is the accumulation of the past. It is how we handle these thoughts that impact the manner in which we live life.

For me (not a magical formula or a series of steps to follow) when faced with the heaviness from the past, I want to know why this is surfacing. Is God bringing this to my mind because there is more that I need to learn from it. If so then I take corrective actionsuch as extending forgiveness or reaching to a person who is hurting.

If God is not the source and I believe that Satan is bringing up certain things, I respond differently. If I am persuaded that all necessary confession and forgiveness has been addressed, then I simply tell Satan that this incident is fully under the blood of Jesus and if he wants to discuss it further, then he will have to take it up with the person of the Godhead who has intervened on my behalf.

Please understand, I do not fully grasp your circumstances and what helps me may not benefit others. I have come to appreciate these "heavy" days because I see God as speaking a word of motivation to me to make necessary amends or it is simply a distraction from Satan attempting to keep me from serving God by attempting to occupy my mind. If Satan is concerned about me I must be doing something right for God!

Joyfully Serving,

Kermit