Created for Eternity

Sunday night, I was sick. Horribly sick. I laid in bed and drifted in and out of the worst sleep, feeling like death. Not enough to actually die, but pretty sure that this was close enough. Yesterday I woke up feeling slightly more human, with an empty stomach and an exhausted mind. Even though my fever was gone, I was 100% not ready to go back to normal.

Last week, I had the worst bug. The comparison bug. That one knocked me out cold for the rest of the week. I hate to admit it, and frankly I still don’t want to, but I am easily defeated by my own mind. By that, I mean I see what everyone else is doing and look at my work and think, “Uh, nope. This is not good. This is not as good as that. I am a joke.”

Another confession, I have been stressed a little. The only good thing about stress in my life is its ability to remove any facade I’ve got going on that I ignore. When I stress, it is easier to say what feels difficult and what gives me this annoying stress in the first place.

My girl Beth Moore said this on twitter this week, and it was like wave of water hit me in the face: “So, that thing you were so excited about turned out to be harder than you dreamed. Things that matter always are. ENDURE. Harvest will come.” Beth. BETH. Did you know you hit me right in the feels, at a pivotal moment of my dramatic, buggy week? I was aiming for wallowing in frustration, and then you knocked me right out of it.

Look, we’ve all got this. We all have hard weeks, moments when we feel like we deserve the sucky parts of our life, or moments when we think we don’t actually deserve the harvest that is sure to come. You want to give up? Me too. I thought I had this. I thought this path was going to be lined with overflowing fruit, but guess what? I can’t see the fruit yet. Instead, I feel like a lonely little writer girl who has just a great God and a quiet path. And I want to let my head droop and give the ground more attention than the heavens.

It’s harder than we dreamed, isn’t it? We find Jesus, and we hope for sunshine and butterflies, maybe even the elusive “clear path” where all decisions are easy to decipher. I know I’m being cynical, but here’s what I want you to know because I want to know it too: There is nothing, nothing, nothing more important than the ground I stand on right now. There is nothing more important than where Jesus puts me. There is nothing more important than standing right here with eyes up to Him, waiting for His guidance, or following His lead, or just being happy to be His girl. To love Him. To praise Him. It’s harder than we dreamed because it’s the most important thing we’ll ever do with our life. Not my lengthy blog posts about this and that. Those don’t matter. What matters is my relationship with Jesus. What matters is giving Him every bit of my free time because He gave me His Son’s life. I read this today in my devotional: God did not create you for time; He created you for eternity. Can I say that again? God did not create you for time; He created you for eternity.

How are you feeling today? It’s harder than we dreamed, isn’t it? Things that matter always are. You’re not alone. But He didn’t create us for doing our own thing, making our own name famous. He made us to make Him the most famous and recognizable of them all. Pressure’s off. You can make it. We’re in this together.