When I'm Not Enough, Drowning, Failing - Gotta Change My Focus

Is anyone else here with me: 
Unable to keep up with life.... 
Rarely feeling like I am keeping all of my plates in the air....
One meal leads to the next meal and then the next....
(Why do they want to be fed.every.meal????)
Laundry is finished for maybe five seconds...maybe....
Toilets need to be cleaned.
Floors need to be swept (and they're supposed to be mopped, too?  Stink.)
Dust?  Yes, we have that in abundance.
Garden needs to be planted and tended.
(The list goes on, I just don't want to bore you.)

All of this, and it doesn't even include interacting with anyone! 
Husband needs to be respected and loved,
cherished and made to feel special.
Children, such a joy so much of the time,
are often noise with Pigpen clouds of billowing dirt.
They need a present mother to:
"Watch this!" 
"Help with this!"   
"Read this!"
Affirm me.

I feel overwhelmed, over-extended, and I haven't even left my home yet.

"Calgon, take me away!"

So what do we do?...what do I do?
I can't answer for you. 
I know what I need to do -- change.my.focus.
That's my problem - my focus is on me and what I am doing...
need to be doing...
should already have done...
last week.

Where should my focus be?  My Jesus.
When my focus is on Him,
He helps me to get off Facebook,
to prioritize,
to do the important,
not just the urgent. 
Am I still facing all that I was facing before? 
Ummm...yes. 
(For some reason, He has yet to send a laundry or dishes fairy.) 
Will I get it all accomplished today? 
Highly unlikely, but at least now I'm closer to being ok with that.

So here I go, Girls. 
I'm off to adjust my focus and let Him be my focus. 
It's His day, after all. 
"This is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it!" 
Even if my floors are still dirty,
my laundry remains undone,
and I haven't started dinner yet.

Any dinner fairies out there?  ;-)


Trusting Him,

Carrie

But God....

Ephesians 2:1-10

“BUT GOD is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much….”  Ephesians 2:4

I love this verse. Paul is reminding us as to what we once were before our salvation – that we were once dead, destined for eternal separation from God. Then Paul says, “But God….”  Sweet words to a yearning hungry soul!  He then goes on to explain in verses 5-10.  Think of it, life forever with God the Father, Jesus Christ, His Son and our Savior and the precious Holy Spirit. What a future we have!!!  And to think it is none of our “doing” and all of God's, as verses 8-9 declare.  Our only work is that of “faith.”  Just to take Him at His word and believe that He has saved us. As someone has said, “God said it and that settles it.”

But Paul also reminds us that He created us for “good works” that we might walk in the ways He has prepared for us (vs10) after we accept His sacrifice for us. That is, to “behave what we believe” as Mrs. Wesley told her boy John.

Verse 4 says He has great love and mercy for us even while we were yet sinners, and He still does after we believe. What a word of assurance!!!  With grateful hearts, we can walk in those good works and tell what Jesus has done for us.

Yes, I love the words, “But God...”

LDiz

Oh, What Love!

John 3:16, Revelation 13:8, Ephesians 1:3

Today as I sit in my sun room, I am acutely aware of God's love for me. As I pray and thank God for my salvation – how in the council of God before the foundation of the world it was decided that Jesus would die for the sins of mankind – I am a grateful soul.

The Bible states that Jesus knew what was in the hearts of men (John 2:25). Yes, God is all knowing, and He created us even though He knew we would sin and need a Savior and that He would send His Son. Jesus knew also the agony He would experience on the cross, even before He came to earth, but He came to earth anyway to save us.  (Read Psalm 22 – it is considered a prophetic Psalm of the crucifixion.) So all glory and praise is due a Savior who, the Bible says, “set His face like flint” to go to Jerusalem, even though it meant agony and death (Isaiah 50:6-7).

I hear the words of a song rumbling around in my mind reminding me, “He could have called ten thousand angels.”  The song goes on to say, “to destroy the world and set Him free,” and then the last line says, “but He died alone for you and me.”

I can just picture Heaven and all the angels standing in awe – some with swords drawn, ready to come should God give the word, but God knew that this was the only way mankind could be restored to fellowship with Him, so He permitted it. He even had to look away when the sin of the whole world – past, present and future – was placed on His Son, because God cannot look upon sin. That was the real agony of the cross for Jesus.

How could we not love and serve God and a Savior who were willing to give their all for the likes of us, so undeserving?  Even afterward, He sent us the precious Holy Spirit to indwell us, to live His life through us and guide us into all truth.  Are we listening?  Are we loving with God's love and serving our Savior and others?  OH, what a love He has for us!

LDiz