Abide

Sometimes God catches you off guard. After things have been running smooth and wonderful for great lengths of time, He asks you to make a move and it's a surprise. It's uncomfortable, it's scary, and it's a time to evaluate where your trust really is.

It seems as if every couple of years, God presses me to do something I just don't want to do. Of course, God isn't a God of clockwork or routine, but rather His own perfect time. A few months ago we took a little family retreat to North Carolina. We spent our time outside, alone, and in peace. When we came home from that trip we felt a stirring to move, change, and pull up our roots. Of course in our simple minds, we thought that was God telling us we would be moving, which we really didn't understand, as my husband's job is pretty much rooted here. But we sat on it, prayed on it, and trusted that God would reveal His plans in His timing. Fast forward to a few weeks later and I all but BOLTED out of a homeschool meeting because I sensed it just wasn't where I was supposed to be. So again, trying to make sense of it all in my mind, I assumed God would be calling us out of homeschooling, and I was really afraid of that answer. Not but a week later, my husband and I sat down for a chat, where we both laid out what God had been revealing to us over time. After we talked it was quite clear what God was initiating. 

Less stuff. More home. Less trying. More resting. 

Like a reset button has to be pushed every now and again, so did our family. Homeschooling? We were FAR off of our prayerfully lead path. People? We were bouncing, struggling to maintain too many relationships, and burnt out. Life? It was just too busy, so busy that almost every little thing had become hired out - daytime help, nighttime help, weekend help, pool help, cleaning help, laundry help. And for what? To keep moving. But God doesn't want our family to keep on keepin' on. 

He wants us to abide. To stop, to listen, to love, be loved, and love out of that love. To not worry about our kids' spiritual journey, but rather let Christ's love flow from our own full hearts into theirs. 

It is so SIMPLE. And yet, as a mother, I feel the urge to twist that simplicity into a game of keep-up, taking advantage of a God who is always going to be there, as if I can just access Him when we aren't so busy. It's like I reason with Him in my mind and say "Yes. God, you are good and all, but this co-op, group, and ministry opportunity is good, too, and it's ONLY happening on Mondays and Thursdays, so I'll figure out how to rest in you when it's another day of the week, because these other people can't wait." Doesn't that sound so silly? And yet, here I am, climbing out of the "It looks good so it must be good" homeschooling trap that the enemy is so thrilled I fell into. Satan would rather me be distracted by something "spiritual" than to be abiding in Christ at the end of that day, and I seem to bite that hook each and every time. And you know what happens? Busyness keeps me from giving my kids the patience and grace they need. It keeps me from having an open heart when my husband is telling me about his day. It keeps me from finding that abundant life that God so wants to live with me, as I'm off searching for it. 

At the end of the day, fifty years from now, it won't matter what groups or activities we participated in, but rather, who we were at home, and what those heart to heart moments looked like. It won't matter if we made it to bible study on time, if we practiced for piano, or if we were prepared for a soccer game. It WILL matter if we let God lead our home, if we trusted his guidance, and if we recognized him as our indwelling life. That is what my kids will learn from, their kids will learn from, and the next generation will learn from. 

So here we are. on a journey that feels so scary and so freeing at the same time. To say goodbye to so many groups and people that have been my security for so long hurts. It sucks. But I trust God. And just like when He had us leave a church that we loved years ago without understanding why, it is painful, but now we see the beauty and the fruit of our faithfulness. Leaving something "good" doesn't seem like something God would do, right? Well it is. Because at the end of the day, the Christ life is just SO simple that it's painful to think I've missed the gentleness of His lead so many times.