Stripping Off Weight

Published by christi on April 22, 2021April 22, 2021

No, I am not aiming at the extra pounds around my middle, but at what the Amplified Bible calls encumbrance. (Not everything that gets in the way of following Jesus is sin.)

I am weary this morning, and a bit achy. A mountain of work awaits me, with no end in sight and no real hope of success. I feel overwhelmed and discouraged.

So I affirm the truths that I know:  God’s mercies are new every morning; His word is true; He orders my steps according to His good plan. He knows all the details of the never-ending to-do list, the crowding of my schedule…like the three things that were supposed to happen tonight…at the same time…and the weaknesses of my body. Are these the weight that needs stripped off? How can I strip it off if I don’t know what it is?

Word of God, speak!

“Expectations,”  is the word I hear.

So I explore my expectations…

…of how life “should” be,

…of how I should feel,

…of what I can accomplish,

…of others’ growth (how and when it should happen).

Am I not to have any expectations? Or am I to surrender them at every moment to the plan that is unfolding before me?

Jesus didn’t just get His “marching orders” in His early morning prayer times and then go off on His own. No, in every moment He was submitting His will to the Father’s, listening for His voice, watching what He was doing next, a continual revelation of the Divine will coupled with the continual surrender of His human will.  I long for that kind of communion!

The surrender of my will to His is never a one-time event, but a daily, hourly, momently repeated process. The expectation that I can do it once in my life (or my day) and it be a fait accompli is madness! Is it my expectations that inhibit it? What should I expect?

The word tells me to expect opposition and resistance — indeed, to be ready to stand against it in His armor, to be trained by it,

–to expect to put forth effort equally against sin and toward peaceful relationships,

–to expect to push toward holiness and dig out bitterness,

–to expect to deny immediate satisfaction of animal hungers.

None of these can be done apart from the power, promise and presence of God. So I am sticking close as I am

Following Jesus every day in the everyday!

Christi