“But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment.” Isaiah 50:11 (NIV)

This school year, I made a decision. I was going to stop homeschooling and put my kids in school so that I could handle things better. One too many comments that started off with, “I don’t know how you do it,” had convinced me that, obviously, I should not even try to. I had gotten focused on how difficult my life is and how much easier things would be if I just lightened my own load. Clearly, taking something off my very full plate would lead to happiness, right?

And so, I solved my own problems and made my own way, reasoning that I was doing what was best. After all, a woman can only be expected to do so much. With homeschooling off my plate, I resolved, I was freed up to do more ministry work. And so, I started waiting for the opportunities to pour in. I hadn’t counted on God having a different plan for me.

Several months into my newfound freedom, I was, to put it simply, bored. I was baking like a mad woman and my house had never been so clean and, while I did enjoy not having to think about lesson plans anymore, there was still something missing. Most noticeably was the relationship I had had with my children at home. But also there was a marked absence of those surefire opportunities I had counted on once my kids were in school. And so, I asked God about this. Why hadn’t He sent me those wonderful book contracts and speaking events I had freed up my schedule to do? I mean, in case He hadn’t noticed, I was F-R-E-E. And in the silence after I finished pouring all this out to Him, I heard: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” And then He added, “You made yourself strong. I couldn’t work with that.”

What a wake-up call this was for me as I considered that perhaps God had intended for me to do exceedingly and abundantly more than I could ask or imagine because of Him at work within me. And I could rest in that, without being fearful of failing because it was “too much.” It was too much for me, but not for Him.

I had, as the verse for today says, fashioned my own torch, lighting my own way in the process. I had forgotten that Jesus taught that He is the light of the world (John 8:12 ). The only light we need. We don’t need to scramble around and take matters into our own hands. We just need to trust Him in our calling and rest in the fact that He is capable of supplying all we need, day by day.

Trying To Keep My Ducks In A Row!

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Mommy to
one politician, one diva, one superhero,
one princess, one cowboy and an angel!