let's ask for it

I've lost some of my footing along the way, lately, and if you really looked me in the eyes and asked lately, "How you doin'?" I woulda said, "Not good." 

My own strength has been weary and faltering, and instead of sitting and waiting on the Lord, I've been trying to hobble on, or looking to other places...Matt, wishes, and if onlys....which of course have only left me unsatisfied, lonely and dry, because none of those fill and satisfy.  The mind set on friends or family or husbands or children or goals or hobbies or dreams or desires is death, the Bible dramatically and truly speaks, and the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. 

After six kids were off to Friday school today, five in uniform, one dressed from the Roaring 20's, all with lunches and water bottles and homework and rubbed off kisses, I started in on mountains of laundry and dishes and crumbs and heaviness.

But Emma, she saw her stroller in the garage through all the exiting siblings and just absolutely insisted. Got in and would not get out. Wok. WOK!

I'm glad she enjoys them as much as I do, but I don't waste my one child-free morning a week on walking! (Yes, moms of 7 call having just 1 kiddo "child-free" time :). I have SO much work to do and so many emails to catch up on!

Wok! You try telling Emma no. She is ridiculously adorable. 

So we go, and I pop on the daily devotionals I started doing a few days ago, noting my skinned knees and slipping feet, looking for the resilience found only in Him. I know how to send down my roots deeply into Him. Why haven't I been?

The words were so rich as the trees towered overhead, the birds called, the sun warmed, so rich I wanted to share them with you. I'm just going to leave them here, and work myself on getting back to giving everyone and everything to Him, living in the river of living waters flowing from His heart.

Just like oxygen, the presence of God and his kingdom surround you all the time. Take a few deep breaths and notice--you don't see it, but it's keeping you alive. You don't see oxygen, but it sustains you.  Take a moment and become aware of the presence of God with you. 

Holy Spirit, make me aware of your presence now. Help me become aware and tune into your presence all around me and within me. 

I know you are gentle: help me to feel your presence with me and within me. 

Our lesson is that we are amphibians, created to live comfortably between the natural world and the spiritual, between earth and heaven. So much of the resilience we seek comes to us from the kingdom of God. Learning to align with it, getting in position to receive it. 

John 7: 37-38

On the last day, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, "Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from His heart." 

The life of God is descibed in Scripture as a river -- a powerful, gorgeous, unceasing, ever renewing, ever flowing river. That river is meant to flow within you, strengthening you, healing you, imparting resilience into your humanity.

Notice the interplay of heaven and earth, the life of the Spirit operating within our humanity. We are strengthened from heaven as God's Spirit comes into our humanity, deep in our inner being. Rivers of living water flowing from Your heart. How beautiful! If we could open our hearts to this, it would heal our humanity and fill us with resilience. 

Let's ask for it.

John Eldridge's 30 Days to Resilient, Pause App.