almost, not really, but who cares?

Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting all things in every direction. And when it feels overwhelming, I ramp up my effort, but I just end up feeling more frazzled.

The truth is, I'd really just like it all done now.

All of it.

I'd like everything decluttered, toned, researched, written, mailed, organized, and ironed, right now, for good.

I'd like everything solved, healed, restored, and sanctified, too.

And yet here is another day, with loose ends everywhere, and I am in the middle of it.

I am restless in this place. Not in control. Uncomfortable. Unsettled.

And perhaps, that is as it should be.

Perhaps my never-ending list has been given me on purpose, so that I give up trying to check-mark my way into security in my own skin.

Perhaps the weight of sin and clutter and life all press down so that I will look up to Christ for help.

I am still here in this place where growth is slow and my house is a mess even though I worked on it for hours today. Here, in a body, I am not all-powerful nor constantly productive. 

I am bound by time and weakness, and I am right to feel that the battle I am fighting cannot be won by me in my little human frame.

a chicken, almost.

True, all true, but how much does it matter, really?

Set down the list, and step back for a moment.

For those of us who are in Christ,
beloved, 
who have been swept up into the loving arms of God,
and who are even now held tight in the Church and the Word,
do we need to worry and plan and fear?

For us, richly blessed,
inheritors of all things in Christ,
does what we lack for a moment really matter?

For the bride of Christ,
destined to be made whole and beautiful for eternity,
do those few remaining spots need to ruin our day?

For the righteous,
given perfection in Jesus (not doomed to constantly seek it!),
Does it really matter than we haven't yet conquered meal planning?
Or that your chicken-egg looks nothing like the one on Pinterest?

You don't always have to run on the hamster wheel.


Take a break. Read a book.
Breathe in His Word.
Know Him better.
Set the list down, and accept your rest, given as a gift just like the air you breathe.

This is the work of God: that we would believe on the one whom He has sent.

This work He assigns, it is work. It is hard to set down the list of temporal to-dos.
But it is a blessed work, a work that is also rest, soul-rest, healing, and health.

Those things that truly matter? 
God himself tends to them even now.

Lord Jesus, 
Here in the unsettled meantime, in the mess and weakness and sin, even now, tend to me. In your mercy, tend to me. In your compassionate forgiveness, tend to me. In loving discipline, tend to me. In your promises, fill me with hope, and tend to me forevermore. Amen.