Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Best Referee I Know...

The last few weeks God has really been speaking to me a lot about a certain topic, but a couple days ago he really solidified it in my heart after a certain situation. The situation was this.

So as always, I have my list of "to do" items, "to buy" items , and "don't forget about" items. One of my "to buy" items was a calendar for my refrigerator. Old school I know...but with the fall starting up, our schedule is filling up fast with so much that I wanted to have something I could unload my brain on and then have it remind me everyday as I walk past it. Anyway, so I planned on just going to walmart the next day and grabbing one but I remembered how incredibly cute this one friends' of mine was on her refrigerator. She made hers online where she has cute photos of all their family on there and scriptures etc. So I thought, that's what I should do instead! So after Bella went to bed I got online to create one "real quick"...riiight.

Sooo, an hour later I'm still working on this calendar and only half way done. I'm still looking for the perfect scriptures to go on each month and a cute picture for each month. In no time I started getting frustrated because I'm realizing how long it's taking me to make this silly calendar. Before I know it, my peace is gone inside and I'm frustrated. Then Mike walks in and as we are talking it just hits me that I need to stop working on the calendar, delete what I had already done, agree to buy one at Walmart, and just spend time with my husband. Instantly, when I decided to do that my peace returned. So as hard as it was to delete all the work I'd done up to that point, I did, then went and spent the rest of the night laying on the bed talking with my husband about the Lord and different aspects of life.

Well, the next morning the Lord used that situation to drive home what he had been teaching me and reminding me of the past few weeks. This is what He said:

"Distractions are a bigger temptation to you right now than sin itself. And remember, distractions aren't always bad things. It wasn't bad to have a calendar with scriptures and pictures of your family but what you were giving up to have it was bad. You must never forget that when you say, "yes" to something, you are always saying "no" to something else..."

From that I was remind of this. God cares how I spend my time. Every day I clock in when I get up and from that point He has a way that he wants me to spend my time. He knows the most important things I need to get done each day and he wants to help me be diligent with my time and to help me spend it the best way possible. He has a perfect plan for my time every day and the enemies main job is to thwart that plan; whatever it may be...and the way he thwarts it is by presenting a distraction of some sort.

This fall I really have some ambitious goals on how many books I want to read, teachings I want to listen to, time I want to spend with my family, and principles I want to implement...BUT I'm realizing that in order to do so I have to really guard myself against distractions. Though things like facebook, emails, tv shows, searching the internet, etc, seem to be the ways I most often get distracted, those aren't the only things. Sometimes they are just good things that I don't need to be doing right now...like the calendar.

One thing I have learned in my walk with God, that I want to share with you, is how I recognize when I start to do something that's not His will for me in that moment. In Colossians 3:15, it says to "let the peace of God rule in your heart." I've also heard it said, "let the peace of God be the referee of your heart." The way I see it, we are going through life and instantly we start to lose peace and get stressed inside. When I feel that I know the Holy Spirit just blew the whistle in my heart and said, "time out." Instantly, I know something isn't right. So I stop and pray and think through what happened to steal my peace. Then I "try on" different options and see if perhaps one restores peace. In the calendar situation, I noticed I lost peace and so after praying through it and trying on the idea of just canceling my calendar project on shutterfly, I knew what to do. Once I "tried on" canceling it, my peace was restored. I knew the Lord was telling me to let that project go and make better use of my time; like pillow talking all night with my hubby. =)

I must say though, sometimes it's really hard to do what he's telling me to do. I cant EVEN begin to tell you how many times he blows the whistle & calls a different play than what I had in mind. BUT I'm so glad he does. I can't tell you many times I'm so glad I listened...even when it didn't make sense. He loves me...and He loves you and in His goodness he doesn't want us to miss out on one good thing He has for us.

So my prayer for me and you is that we don't get distracted and that we are sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit to notice the lack of peace and the blown whistle...and that we will trust Him enough to courageously respond to His call...whatever it may be.


3 comments:

  1. Alicia,
    I really appreciate your blog and you sharing what you're learning... great post and really really timely in my own life. I thrive on projects....and I've been learning lately that "people are the only thing you can invest in that last.. they're eternal and all this other stuff is not". It's helping me make better decisions.. but it's still hard to let go of the desire to achieve in ways I seem to think are important.

    Love to you & your family.

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  2. Leah,
    I'm right there with you. I've too have been encouraged to invest in things that will last and truly matter. It's hard because in order to do that you have to jump out of the rat race of life...and as a mommy we have very little time anyway, so we have to be super wise and spend our time on things that bear lasting fruit.
    Thank you for sharing your thoughts Leah...
    <3
    Alicia

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  3. Alicia,
    Great insight and wisdom from the Lord. This is a challenging and helpful blog.
    Thanks,
    Aunt Ada

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