Things I Don't Do.

I am addicted to wanting to do everything. Not only do I want to do everything but I want to do it all well. And not only do I want to do everything well but I want to be everything to everyone. Yes, even you. I would love to come over to your house and listen to you tell me all of your problems and then tell you how to fix them. I truly do want to listen and then I truly do want you to do what I say. So sweet, right? Yeah, not so much. 

It has been a hard reality for me to accept that I cannot under any circumstance do everything well or be everything to everyone  anyone. It has been maybe an even harder reality for me to accept the fact that if I do have the opportunity to give advice to someone that they should be really careful as to listen to it because I am indeed human, fallen and often times... wrong. So with every word I say or type-- know that this is just my heart and my story. You would be wise to take my words with a grain a salt and to seek Christ and His word for all answers. 

I am currently (re) reading the book, Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. I love this book and recommend it to anyone! In a specific chapter titled, "Things I Don't Do", Shauna talks about the importance of recognizing the things that you do and the things that you don't do. She goes on to talk about how you need to know what is important to you and then know what you are willing to give up for those things. In other words, what are things that you do because you are most passionate about them and because the Lord has gifted you in those areas and then, what are the things that you don't do? Because at the end of the day, you just like me aren't Superman and can't accomplish it all. 

Things I do: 

I am a Christ follower and a slave to Him alone. Above all else, I strive to keep my faith in Christ as the center of my everything. I am the daughter of the King of Kings and I must cultivate my relationship with Him on a daily basis. I am a part of my church community and I serve on it's behalf within the church and out into the larger community of the City of Waco. 

I am a daughter, sister, roommate, and friend. I do everything that I can to nurture and grow these relationships because after my commitment to Christ these people come next. I work hard at being intentional and staying connected with these individuals because I feel called and equipped by my Heavenly Father to do so. Living and learning and simply being with these people breaths life into me and so I do friendship, I do family and I do covenant relationships. I give my time and energy and prayer to these people, trusting that the Lord will continuously reveal to me who these people are and need to be-- for I recognize that seasons are always changing. 

I am a student and I am a Chi-O. While I often times feel like I come up short in these categories, these are still things that I do and things that I am committed to. These are the things that keep me busy and things that bring me joy. Things that have taught me the importance of commitment and how you can't have true commitment without sacrifice. These things have stretched me and have molded me. For that, and for other reasons, I am thankful. 

I am a reader, a journal writer, a blogger, a runner and an adventurer. While some might say that these are things on the list that could stand to go on the days when I feel like I don't have enough time-- these are the things that give me energy and the things that make me feel closest to my sweet Jesus. So they stay. 

Things I don't do: 

I don't cook. I want to and maybe (hopefully) one day I will but as of today--I really don't. 

I don't keep my room spotless and I never make my bed. I will forever and always wonder why people make something that they are just going to un-do in mere hours? 

I don't keep up with fashion and I rarely dress cute. If you find yourself looking at me thinking that I look cute then it's a safe bet that my roommates (or Lydia) dressed me. 

I start more books than I finish and as a person who obsesses over books thats hard for me to admit.

I don't paint my nails. I don't even know how. I also don't blow dry my hair. Who has time for that? 

I don't pull all-nighters and I put my work off until the last minute. Yes, your thoughts are correct this is a recipe for disaster. If I have a project due the next day that I haven't started until the night before, 10 times out of 10 I am going to bed regardless. 

I don't like huge groups of people and I don't hang out with them if I can avoid it. 

I don't do change well... but I don't fight it anymore either. 

It's not easy to make your list of the things that you don't do. This is especially true for someone like me who refuses most of the time to admit that there actually is in fact a limit to the things that I am capable of doing.  BUT,  what I am realizing is that this list sets me free. 

When I am tempted to go try and do everything and be everything for everyone I remember this list. I remember the important things, the ones that He has so clearly called me to and so clearly given me the ability to do. I don't have the ability to do it all and that's okay, because there are other people who get to fill in the gaps that I can't fill. Thats the beauty of it all. The beauty of community. 

When someone who is hurting needs someone to listen, I can go and do. But when someone who is hurting needs cookies to make them feel better, then I accept that they want good cookies and not burnt ones and I call my Betty Crocker roommates who can quickly and joyfully deliver. 

At the end of the chapter, Shauna says this: 

"The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being." 

Be comfortable and confident in who God has made you to be and then go do the things that you can do and stop obsessing over the things that you can't do because guess what? God has someone who can do them and it doesn't have to be you or me. 

Cheers to Starvation.

My flesh has been extremely prominent in my life lately. I am aware that my flesh is always there, always begging for attention from me. However, the past couple of weeks it seems like it's been harder to quiet. It's been clingy, needy, and desperate. More times than not, I have been giving into the worldly things that help quiet my flesh down. To put it more simply, I have been choosing to feed a hungry flesh with things that only make it more hungry. And all of this has made me think a lot about something...

It's okay good to let my flesh go hungry. To refuse to give it food. To put it into a state of starvation. 

This might seem obvious, but I don't think we really grasp this. I know that I haven't and that I am still struggling to. We live in a society that tells us to satisfy our desires as quickly as possible. Rarely to we practice the discipline of waiting. We don't like the way we feel when we are having to wait for something and we definitely don't like the way we feel when we are abstaining from something that we know has satisfied us in the past. Because of this, the trend I have noticed in my own life as well as in the life of those I live the closest with, is that we just don't wait--we don't abstain simply because it doesn't feel good in the moment. Sure, we tell ourselves it isn't all about feelings but then we go on to act like it's all about feelings. We say one thing and then we let our actions tell another. This type of living is dangerous and it doesn't give much credit to the Gospel that we proclaim.

When I have weeks like the past couple that I have had, I am really tempted to follow and to feed my flesh. To even go as far as to become friends with it. Maybe even best friends.

But I must not do this. I have the fuel that I need to walk by the Spirit. I have everything that I need to choose godliness because my sweet Savior's word has said so.

2 Peter 1:3 says this: "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and goodness". 

Faith and trust in Jesus will quiet my flesh. Faith that He will give life to this body in the same way He gave life to Christ's. It was faith in the resurrection that allowed Jesus to walk to the Cross and it's that same faith that allows me to starve my flesh. Worldly things will also quiet my flesh but only temporally and in the lamest of ways.

C.S Lewis says it way more eloquently than I ever could when he says this:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Heres the challenge that I am giving myself and I offer it to you as well:

Choose the Spirit. Starve your flesh. 

Trust that God is your Shepherd and that He is good.  He withholds nothing good from you and He knows what you need and when you need it. 

My flesh is indeed needy and hungry. But today and everyday I get to tell my flesh that it's okay that it isn't satisfied right now. It can continue to long and can continue to be needy without me feeding it. One day in the same way that my soul is satisfied by the sweetness of my Savior, my flesh will be too. When my flesh meets Jesus face to face then it will find complete satisfaction but until that day it won't be satisfied and that's okay. 

My prayer is that I will accept this truth. Cheers to starvation.