Busyness. Full calendars. Early mornings. Late nights. That’s the season I’m in right now. It’s full and it’s good and it’s beautiful, but it’s still full. Full can be tricky. It is fulfilling and overflowing and magnificent but is also overwhelming and not empty and stressful sometimes.
In the midst of full, I often lose sight of God and his plan and purpose and his presence. I just start going and doing and staying afloat and then all of the sudden, I forget the last time I had an encounter with God. Sometimes in the full, quickly enter into darkness and dread when lose sight of God. I see that played out here:
“Lord, hear my prayer!
Listen to my plea!
2 Don’t turn away from me
in my time of distress.
Bend down to listen,
and answer me quickly when I call to you.
3 For my days disappear like smoke,
and my bones burn like red-hot coals.
4 My heart is sick, withered like grass,
and I have lost my appetite.”
Psalm 102: 1-4 (NLT)
My heart becomes sick and my prayers become frantic, grasping for a glimpse of God when I finally slow down enough to realize that I haven’t seen him lately.
This feeling is legitimate and it’s my reality in this moment, but God’s truth is greater. When I feel sick and lost and wandering and life gets hard, God reminds me that he is good and he is constant and that he blesses me when I obey his commands.
“But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever.
Your fame will endure to every generation.”
Psalm 102: 12 (NLT)
God constantly reminds me that he is constant and he will never change and he will never leave me.
“God, the Lord, created the heavens and stretched them out.
He created the earth and everything in it.
He gives breath to everyone,
life to everyone who walks the earth.
And it is he who says,
6 “I, the Lord, have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.
I will take you by the hand and guard you,
and I will give you to my people, Israel,
as a symbol of my covenant with them.
And you will be a light to guide the nations.
7 You will open the eyes of the blind.
You will free the captives from prison,
releasing those who sit in dark dungeons.
8 “I am the Lord; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to anyone else,
nor share my praise with carved idols.
9 Everything I prophesied has come true,
and now I will prophesy again.
I will tell you the future before it happens.”
Isaiah 42: 5-9 (NLT)
God reminds me that he is good and he is all-powerful and his promises are true.
“There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession.5 You will receive this blessing if you are careful to obey all the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. 6 The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow. You will rule many nations, but they will not rule over you.”
Deuteronomy 15: 4-6 (NLT)
God promises to bless me if I follow his commands.
That is such a beautiful truth: to know that the Lord will bless me if I only obey. Obeying God leads to blessing and blessings often lead me to full. The full can be overwhelming but it is good. I find myself in cycles of full and blessing that lead me to busy that then leads me to too fast and then I eventually pause and find God and he reminds me of who he is and leads me into obedience which brings me back to blessing and to full.
The most difficult thing for me is finding the balance and learning to find God in the full so I don’t get to the part of the cycle that is busy and overwhelming. For now, I am rejoicing in the cycle, for every part teaches me more about God and grows my relationship with him.
Emma
Sixty-six books in a year 