Spinning Plates

Stress.  Worry.  Fatigue.  There's a bit of that going around my house these days.  So I struggle with trying to keep it all into prospective.

Sometimes it's simply a confluence of events that merge and overlap, stretching us thinner than we'd like.  Sometimes it's because we can't say no and agree to be responsible for too much.  The trick is knowing where your boundaries are, knowing your limits and not letting the expectations of everyone else, push you into putting their priorities ahead of your own... or Gods. 

It's hard when everyone else is screaming for you to do their thing, and the Lord speaks in a still small voice.  A voice that's only heard when we close everything else out and ask Him to say it again.  It's also hard when we carry our own agendas, agendas that require us to stay focused, on task and keep our eyes on a goal.   Our hands become so full of what we carry, or busy spinning plates, that we aren't able to receive what God would give us.  If you are like some in my family, you are very hard on yourself, with high standards and so very good at keeping all the plates spinning.

I won't go into the details of the particular stresses our family is under.  Some of it isn't my story to tell, and I didn't really bring it up here in this place to vent over the frustrations of the issues.  I bring it up, because how we handle stress is vitally important to God.  How we process it, how we treat the people around us, and how we come to terms with the responsibilities we are entrusted to, are where the rubber meets the road in how we live out our salvation.

The bible says that this process is a refiners fire, that the everyday messiness of our lives causes enough heat and pressure to separate the dross.  It creates a sludge of nastiness that has to be skimmed off the top in order for the metal to be pure.   

But the problem is that the process is uncomfortable.  It hurts.  It makes you want to lash out at people around you.  It makes you want to find someone else to blame.  That is human nature. 

The floating debris of sinful, human behavior when you are under stress is the very thing that God wants you to hand over to him.  Maturing doesn't happen in an instant.  Salvation does, but the rest is the ongoing refining process that gets decided in the little moments of your every day.  In the spaces between falling under stress and what you do with it. 

He knows that life is tough, that we have our priorities wrong and we take so much on that we are afraid to slow down.  Salvation doesn't mean that we suddenly are perfect!  All it means is that we have access to someone who is.  Someone who waits for you to ask for his help in dealing with the dross that's floating around in your vision.

He says, in Matthew 11:30 that his burden is easy and his yoke is light.  It means that we always have a partner to share the load.  It means that we have a place to set the worry, because His perspective changes our stress levels. 

Again, that sounds like a pretty image, but it doesn't help in the practical everyday part of slugging through a tough day, does it?  No.  That's because in order for all that to work, for it to function, it means you have to treat God like a person you can trust, and not an intellectual agreement you've made about your ethics.

Because of our pride and our tendency to blame shift, we cling to that debris I was talking about: our justifications for our behavior, the anger that we think makes us strong, the envy and jealousy that feeds our belief that other things will make us happy. 

To be yoked with Jesus means that you trust Him more than you trust your own abilities.  That's why the burden is light.  Because it's HIM working through you to accomplish things.

Philippians 2:12-13  So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

He is a real person, with his own plan for your life.  Most of us humans just don't like letting someone else have control.  At our core, we don't like someone else to have the ability to screw up our plans, goals and dreams. 

Trust is what it really comes down to then, isn't it?  Do you trust Him?  Is He a real person who is vitally interested in you, desiring to spend time with you, to heal you, to give you Joy and Peace? 

It's all decided in those tiny spaces where we make the choice of trusting in Him or relying on our own resources.  If you have not submitted yourself to the Lord while you are still liquid and malleable, then when the stress (heat) goes away, the metal of your being hardens again, and the scum on the top makes it even more difficult to hear that still small voice.  After a while, you build your own thick wall between God and you.  "That's just the way I am" and we justify our behavior.  All the while it eats at us that we are left with a plastic Christianity that has no power because we no longer have access to the one who can make us pure, make our burdens light. 

But first... we have to come to him.  Stop trying to do it on our own limited resources as though we don't want to bother him with it, and bring our crisis to Him.  Because the power to do the mighty things are decided in those small spaces between cause and effect.