The Fog of Anxiety

Getting lost in the fog is a bit of a cliche. Heavy fog is the easiest way to manufacture fear and suspense in movies. Even when it is on screen we can pick up on the sense of uncertainty or fear in face of the unknown.

I have driven in fog many times, sometimes in day but more often at night. There is a dark heaviness to driving in fog at night as your lights shine out into the fog creating a bright world that only extends as far as the fog allows. The heavier the fog the smaller that world grows until all your bearings are completely gone.

In the worst of fog you become crippled by the uncertainty that surrounds you. Your car can run well, your lights be in perfect working order, the road straight and true and you can still be brought to a halt fearing an oncoming car, a deer in the road, or a possible curve that could leave you in the ditch.

Anxiety functions in much the same way. As it builds it starts hiding things from view. Things that are real and good and true. Things that bring joy and life and beauty. Things that help you keep your bearings and keep you moving in the right (or any) direction.

As anxiety grows in one’s heart and mind there is a mental and emotional fog that can blind you from all those things. Timidity, uncertainty, and then fear can obstruct the normal processes for seeing and hearing truth. Ultimately you grind to a halt as the anxiety becomes crippling as your brain is overrun by fog.

What the anxious heart and mind needs, what it longs for, is a way to roll back the fog. Medication, counseling, good sleep and exercise are certainly on the list of things that can help with that. On top of that, I've found that consistent and deep drinking from the wells of truth and grace found in scripture are of utmost importance.

Medication, counseling, and other things can help reduce the fog of anxiety. However, removing the fog only does the work of bringing your heart or mind back to some measure of normalcy. This is a good thing but the problem is that our "normal" hearts and minds are still marred by sin. And for that problem and the lingering "fog" that comes with it, only God and the gospel of Jesus Christ can bring healing, redemption, and full restoration.

When the fog of anxiety begins to roll in we need to run to Jesus. With God's help by His Spirit, we can move beyond "normal" to something greater. To do this we need to give ourselves daily and even hourly doses of the good medicine of the gospel. We can live and breathe and eat and drink the Good News of redemption, forgiveness, love, grace, mercy, joy, and freedom. Our hearts and minds can be revived with the glorious hope that comes from knowing our loving Savior.

Experiencing "peace that surpasses understanding" and seeing a "joy set before us" that allows us to persevere and endure during suffering are gifts of God beyond measure of worth. Receiving them and abiding in them are the work of faith and trust and surrender. Part of fighting anxiety involves training our hearts and minds to dwell on the things of God:

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." -Philippians 4:8

I found a book that is tremendously helpful for me in filling my heart and mind with the fog -destroying truth of Jesus. It is called: "A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God's Love" by Milton Vincent. Dripping with scripture and thoughtful application of God's word, it has been an unexpected lifeline in fighting my anxiety. Moreover, it is so practical in its writing that it helps cultivate attitudes and habits that go beyond maintaining "normal" and pushes me to yearn for healing and redemption and growth.

Here is an online PDF version of the book,  and here it is on Amazon. It is worth the 3 or 4 bucks to have a hard copy!

Sorrows Like Sea Billows

Have you ever taken a walk past a marina on a peaceful day? Being from Minnesota, with all of it's beautiful 10,000 lakes, makes this a fairly common thing for me. I love looking out and seeing all of the sailboats tied up out in the water. Rather than being "docked" they are tied off on anchors that allow them some movement in the wind and weather. The gentle bob that the boats all join in together is a calming and peaceful experience to take in.

If you've had the chance to see a sight like this perhaps you've noticed something about the ropes used to tie off those boats to their anchors. On calm days they lay slack and can be hanging in the water straight down from the front of the boat. With a bit of a breeze the ropes pick up a slow curve from anchor to the bow of the boat.

If you were to go back to view those same boats during a storm with strong winds you'd see those ropes pulled tight and straight. Or, if the winds were gusty, you'd see the ropes jerking taught and pulling on the boat against the violence of the wind and waves.

When a storm like this comes, with wind howling and waves rolling, it isn't the size or cost or beauty of the boat that will keep it from trouble. It is the sureness of the anchor that matters. Any anchor that doesn't hold in that marina will expose that boat to being grounded, dashed upon the rocks, capsized, or crashing in to other boats.

So it is with anxious souls. When things are going well in life, "when peace like a river attendeth thy way" we can take for granted or even forget our anchors. We can assume that the "anchors" for our souls are sure and sound because they have not been tested. It is often the storms of life that prove the worth of our anchors.

Many people in this world have been dismayed in times of trouble, sorrow, and strife when they realize they have anchored to something that is not sure. I am convinced that much of the current cultural vitriol comes from a place of fear and doubt and an existential angst arising from souls that are not anchored to anything that is truly sure and sound.

For those who struggle with anxiety this problem creates even greater stress. This is where anxiety, both in its clinical and more general sense, create "wind and waves" that test the sureness of anchors. Everyday life can feel stormy for the anxious soul, and our anchors either prove secure and worthy of the trust we've given them or they come loose showing they were not of value for our hearts and minds.

Anxiety has left me feeling tossed about and struggling under the deluge of waters at times. But I have also felt the tug from the rope of faith anchored in Christ. It sometimes can even be painful to have anxiety creating "sorrows like sea billows" that pull so violently on that rope and anchor. By God's grace I have always found that Christ is more than worthy as an anchor for my soul.

For anyone reading who does not yet follow Christ I want to ask how sure are you in the anchors for your soul? Will they hold for the storms and troubles that life throws at all of us? Will they hold for eternity or are they man made thoughts that are as likely to perish within a decade as within a millennia? Do you have a history of drifting or changing beliefs and moral sentiments that mirror the cultural moment?

These questions are worth asking of anything we put our hopes and allegiances in. I've asked these questions of my own hope and trust in Christ and have always found my anchor to be steadfast and sure. If you don't have good answers to these questions consider the words of the hymns and words below and the surety of God expressed therein.

Two well known hymns have been great reminders for me of where I am anchored in the midst of my anxious storms: "It is well with my soul" and "My hope is built on nothing less". I want to close this post with the middle verses of "My hope is built on nothing less" as an encouragement for those anxious Christians who are reading.

When darkness veils His lovely face,

I rest on His unchanging grace;

In every high and stormy gale,

My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,

Support me in the whelming flood;

When all around my soul gives way,

He then is all my hope and stay.

Trapped in Anxiety

One of the harder things about anxiety for me has been a strangling sense of confinement. It is not a constant but instead something that builds and dissipates, sometimes quickly and other times slowly. As anxiety sets in there is a disengagement from normal or desired habits and patterns. 

The disengagement can be internal as you look at your current state while simultaneously longingly looking at whatever image you have of your normal self. Or it can be a disengagement from friends and family as anxiety consumes more and more head space, taking away energy that would normally be given towards those people. 

For me it has also happened in relationship to things that are normally life-giving and energizing. It is very difficult experience for me to not like the foods I normally like, enjoy the movies/entertainment I normally enjoy, or enjoy the social interactions that are so much a part of my life.

The sum of it all creates a very stifling sense of confinement. Within anxiety it is easy to feel trapped. No room to move, no where to stretch out and experience life. The world shrinks and everything in life appears as chaos and pressure. For me, as a Christ-follower, the only outlet in the hardest of times is the shaft of light and breath that comes from faith.

For those struggling with anxiety and for those trying to help, finding ways to increase the size of that outlet is of incredible importance. Pulling back those pressures, bringing clarity to the chaos, and bringing truthful perspective to the skewed perspectives created by anxiety allows the anxious soul to stretch and breathe and live again. 

Here are some of the battlefronts for me that I have discovered in the fight against anxiety. Each is a place where others have been able to help in breaking down the sense of the confinement. For those helping or loving a person struggling with anxiety make sure to avoid any sense of being patronizing. At least for me, my anxiety strengthens my radar for that kind of thing. Without further ado here are my five battlefronts for fighting anxiety:

• relational- Anxiety itself creates a desire to isolate oneself. Add in a sense of shame or stigmatization and the anxious person can quickly withdraw from their regular relational habits. Continued attempts to connect or hang out are very appreciated, even if not always accepted. Simply knowing someone knows, cares, and is praying is a tremendous gift of grace.
• personal- The truth helps a lot, especially about one's self. By that, I mean having true and accurate perceptions about situations, people, the world and self. Keep a list of things that you know to be true of life so that you can pull it out during hard times. For friends trying to help, point the anxious soul towards truth about life and different situations. Remind them of their kindness or sense of humor or their favorite foods or anything else that is true of them.
• physical- For me physical touch and exercise have been hugely helpful. A touch like a hug, pat on the back, back rub from my wife, use of a weighted blanket have been ways to reconnect with the present and with reality when I am feeling anxious. I wrestle my kids, get exercise, and find ways to get my body moving. Some days that extra exertion is beyond reach but that is where family have been a blessing with an extra hug or snuggle or reading a book together on the couch.
• mental- Keeping my mind active and engaged is very helpful in fighting anxiety. When anxiety is building I find that low stimulus or mindless kinds of activities are helpful. Listening to music, writing, drawing, doing puzzles, doing dishes, watching a movie, mowing the lawn, having a book read aloud, and similar things that require low physical activity and sometimes lower-level mental activity help keep the anxiety held at bay.
• spiritual- When things are not going well, there is a certain mental fog that settles in one's heart and mind that can make seeing or hearing truth difficult. Scripture tells us that the truth will set us free so finding ways to hear or graciously communicate truth is imperative to clearing some of the clutter and chaos that the anxious soul sees. Based on an anxiety coping technique that I mentioned in my previous post on anxiety I created a spiritual grounding technique that I have used to remind myself of spiritual truths. 
• 5-think of five things that you are thankful for
• 4-think of four promises of God or four truths about who you are in Christ
• 3-think of three stones of remembrance, points in your life where God showed up
• 2-think of two people you can talk with and have pray for you then do it
• 1-take action using one spiritual discipline that draws you closer to God

I hope that these posts are helpful as you help fight your own or someone else's anxiety. As this series of blog posts continues I'd love to hear feedback, questions, or ideas from others. Were in this battle together!

Feeling Anxious?

I'm starting a new "series" of posts today talking about anxiety. Because I struggle with anxiety I obviously will be writing from experience in many instances but I hope to write in a more general way as well that might connect better with others experiences. It is a hard balance between appropriate vulnerability and TMI, especially on a blog open to the world.  Central to my experience is my faith in Jesus Christ so I am hoping that scripture bleeds through my writing as well.

I have two hopes in writing these posts:

1. To provide encouragement to those dealing with anxiety and to help combat the "I'm all alone in this" spirit that often comes with anxiety. In fact part of my writing is to fight that for myself.
2. To help those who love someone with anxiety perhaps understand more of what the experience is like. I know it can be hard for others to understand because most people with anxiety don't understand it themselves! Everyone's experience of anxiety (or depression) is different so thoughtful questions about each persons experience will be necessary as you love and care for someone in the middle of the battle. 

One of the things that has helped me in processing my anxiety has been drawing. The irony of this is pretty huge as it used to make me anxious to have to draw anything. I was truly bad in school and stopped taking art classes as soon as was allowed. Until a few months ago I had not willfully drawn anything in over twenty years. 

Well, I'm drawing (poorly) now and decided that I would share those pictures on these posts as many of them communicate a point I'd like to make about my experience with anxiety. With that said, don't expect to be wowed by the drawings. They wouldn't belong on the walls of those coffee shops that always have weird, local, and sometimes bad artwork hanging.

Today's piece I've just now decided to call "Anxious, Yet Roguishly Handsome". Not because the second part is true but to show that I still have my sense of humor. It may not be funny to you other than the fact that it is not a good drawing and doesn't look a ton like me. It reminds me a bit of the picture Napoleon Dynamite draws for his date to the dance. Even so, my sense of humor is still there when I am struggling anxiety. I am still me. The ridiculous title (not the picture) communicates one thing that I and others with anxiety really want others to understand: we are still ourselves. 

"Anxious Yet Roguishly Handsome"

Anxiety presses in in strange ways that leave you feeling not yourself and leave you worried that others will think this new "not yourself-ness" is the real you. I am not my anxiety. I struggle with it, and sometimes it tries to define me, but at the end of the day I am still Aaron Robertson. I may not look it in the moment and sometimes I may not feel it myself, but the thing that I keep pushing towards is being fully "me". For me, my desire is that people would take a longer view of who I am over time versus taking a smaller glimpse of the struggle and thinking I have turned into someone different.

I will focus on various aspects of my experience of anxiety and my reflections on it as this series continues. For this post I wanted to close by passing along two helpful links. 

The first is a link for those struggling with anxiety that explains a coping technique called "grounding" that I have found very helpful. I even used it recently with my daughter as she was very anxious about flying on a plane. It worked very well for her too and is something that I am now teaching my other kids as a way to handle negative emotions in a positive way.

The second link has a list of things that people struggling with anxiety wished that others could understand. When I read it I felt very understood as I worked through others responses as many of them were things that I have thought and felt. 

As these posts continue I'd love to hear thoughts and questions from you so please don't hesitate to comment.

When It's Nobodies and Everybody's Fault

Sin can be very beguiling. It tempts and taunts and entices. It lies and corrupts and forces us to turn our hearts over to self-justification. It lies within us in ways we don't always see and can't always explain. It shows up in many ways.

We tell ourselves that the little white lie told to protect someone isn’t that bad. Or we decide the extra percentage given towards retirement on earth and not treasures in heaven is wise investment. The cold shoulder and long standing family feud started for reasons no longer remembered. These behaviors and sins settle in to our hearts in often inconspicuous ways.

Not so big in the beginning. Perhaps not even sinful. But over time sin does what it does and these things can consume us. Its no longer the white lies but the secondary ones told to cover the first. The “glory” of a retirement you’ve “earned” becomes a driving force behind stingy and calculated “generosity”. The family feud becomes a prideful grudge match with each party waiting for the other to apologize first.

Sin certainly can entangle itself with our hearts and minds in innumerable ways.

But sometimes in this fallen world sin isn’t just working from within your heart to steal, corrupt, and destroy. Sometimes sin works outside of us in this world to crush and mangle and tear apart our hearts and to rob us of joy or love or hope or faith.

Many times we fail to call some of these realities for what they are: sin.

Cancer is sin

Miscarriage is sin

Anxiety and depression are sin

Failed crops are sin

Corrupt systems and processes are sin

Each is a product of a sinful and broken world with no clear or single “culprit”. It is sin that just is because of original sin and the curse put on humanity and the world. It is why all creation groans in longful expectation of redemption.

But we don’t often call these kinds of things sin. We call them unfortunate. Tragic. Natural disasters. “The way things go.”

The problem lies in how we view sin. We tend to only ever view it as personal and consequential and in being in need of a person at fault.

Except sin isn’t just that. Who is at fault for someone’s cancer? Or depression? Or a lost child?

There are some that will press in on the “this is your fault in some way” mode of thinking. We do it to ourselves, examining motives and actions or long ago patterns of life and then imagining some way in which God might be judging us for some misdeed. We wonder what hidden or un-confessed sins a lie behind a persons suffering. We are as likely to play the role of Job's friends as we are to play Job. What tragic, self-inflicted soul-wounds  we give ourselves when we think in this way.

Sin is. While the Lord tarries and we await his return sin plainly and simply is at work in myriad ways to steal, kill, and destroy. While sin is human it isn’t always the sin of a specific human that is to be blamed when we see sorrows and tragedies.

A particular problem of our current age is that we like to see heads roll. We want someone to blame, often in the process excusing or justifying ourselves. It makes such a neat and tidy solution to blame an individual or group. That sense of justice often fails because it is vindictive and short term in its view or sin.

Scripture tells us that all of creation is groaning under the weight of sin. Not just human souls. Not just human systems or governments. ALL of creation. Which means that in many cases sin just is. It is at work outside of any particular action or motive or malfeasance that humans can contrive of.

And so we have cancer. And children lost too young. And anxiety and depression. And so many other things. It is everyone’s fault and no ones fault. Sin has a life and trajectory and uses beyond those which we put it too.

In His Word, God gives us a corrective to our “this is your fault” kind of thinking about sin. John 9 gives us a story that reveals greater purposes that make our simplistic, fault-finding thinking about sin quite difficult to hold on to:

“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’”

Jesus doesn’t give blame in this situation. He also doesn’t say there isn’t sin. Rather, he points towards the reality that there is work to be done in bringing about life and light and righteousness in a sinful world. There is a need for a Redeemer and Savior.

To spend all our time looking for someone or something to blame can distract us from the far more positive call on our lives to work for good, for healing, and for flourishing. The work of uncovering unrighteousness is one aspect of Christian living. Currently it is a popular one that mirrors our broader culture’s divisive atmosphere. However, as Christians we see just as many admonitions (maybe more, I didn’t count) for us to pursue righteousness, to seek the things of God, and to live lives as God’s holy ones. Simplistic categories of oppressed and oppressor are far to stunted and faulty in their views of the complexity of sin in us and the world.

We ought not simply take an adversarial stance towards the world, even with all its horrible realities. Sin really is everywhere but protest only gets us part way to moving towards righteousness. We ought to zealously and persistently work together as the people of God to build and create and enjoy lives and families and cultures of righteousness reflective of the God we serve. The call of God for Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion and to bring order and to live in submission still stand. We are not just holding out for a better day or a change in culture or for heaven. We are striving to build outposts of righteousness in our hearts and lives, families, and anywhere else we have influence.

We should be thinking far more on what righteousness and light and life we might bring to the sinful world around us. Sin is real and it is everywhere but we are ambassadors of one who has overcome death and sin and we ought to busy ourselves the work of helping others in the same way as God calls and equips each one of us. We are to be holy as He is holy. 

So when cancer strikes, when injustice appears, when disaster and tragedy spring up around you, lament and grieve the sin in each. And then, bit by bit, start the hard road of obedience to bring righteousness, and grace and mercy to the situation. 

Life is a Vapor

Scripture tells us that we are as dust, fading like flowers and grasses of the field. Life is a vapor, blown away and gone with seeming insignificance. And parts of our life and many of our memories are that way. We have moments of “smallness” and vulnerability that give our hearts a proper orientation to the universe and to God. But sometimes that smallness and vulnerability is accompanied by a jagged rawness that is powerfully and unfailingly hard.

Life as a vapor seems a joke when we wake up confronted by the concrete reality of suffering and death. There is no sense of “vapor-ness” when anxiety suffocates and grinds you down with raw anguish or despair. Cancer is unrelenting in its disabuse of our vapor lives because its pain is so deep, confusion so profound, and ferocity so unmitigated.

Nothing about life feels a vapor when nothing seems to be right in the world. Life presses in on us with no mercy when we get that late night phone call or that dreaded confession from a spouse. We wish we were more vapor-like when the slings and arrows of the world pierce our bodies and souls. Instead of vapor we can experience life as a rock against which we are broke.

When we touch and taste and feel and hear the solid, physical realities of a broken world it seems that the vapor-ness of our lives have lost contact with that which is ultimately ours: a soul made for eternity.

The truth that is so easy to lose hold of is the world that will fade away. With that, our pains and sorrows and struggles and grief will become as vapors. On the other side of death we realize that we ourselves were not the vapors. Instead it was what life and the world handed us that were vapors. Whether grief or sorrow or health and wealth, they are vapors. Our eternity will shed full light on these vapors that we can never make sense of in the here and now.

I’ve got no words of comfort for those lamenting and despairing the brutal concreteness of life right now. They would seem trite and out of place. The only encouragement I can give is that for those in Christ hope does spring eternal. Hope is not a vapor and is not of this world and is not contingent upon the concrete, pressing realities that make one’s soul despair.

So I don’t offer a particular word of hope. I don’t have a quick fix or a passage of scripture to run to (though there are many). Neither do I hold promises for hope to be found in your timing or according to your plans. God holds that control.

What I can say from experience is that we can train our hearts to see and notice hope. Not made up, good-report-from-the-doctor, or abating-of symptoms-and-sufferings hope, but true and real and eternal hope. We can cultivate our senses to pick up on hope. It becomes just as physical as our pains and sorrows and we can touch, taste, and see it, hold it in our hands, and share it with others. And somehow, by God's grace overtime we can find the the hope we find in Him is able to swallow up our misery and sorrow. There isn't a forgetting of the pain but a sweetening of the soul that gives us strength to fight for joy.

Train your heart. It was made to hold on to the eternal hopes and joys to found in Christ.

In a pitch black room the tiniest flicker of light from a struck match can shed light on everything. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” May God grant us eyes to see and share that light through the vapors of this world. 

The Beauty of the Lord

Behold the beauty of the Lord

upon bended knee, filled with awe,

reduced to tears by grace and mercy.

Detestable, broken, lost ashamed

brought into light, made whole and clean

life and love and laughter abound

joy given from a bleeding crown

Fighting for Faith

I recently dug out an old journal. Even with a love for writing I don't often write in journals. It was from nearly 14 years ago which was the last time I did journal with anything that might be mistaken for "regularity". Anyway, many of those entries were written during a period of my life much like the past several months where anxiety was heavy upon my soul.

Up front, it is good to clarify that my faith wasn't in a great place when I wrote this. The loneliness and confusion and perceived isolation of anxiety come through loud and clear. In the midst of the despair that comes out here, a hope in God builds as it finishes.

I share not to celebrate some grim realities in my heart and life at that time but instead to remind myself and others that the fight of faith truly is a fight sometimes. The process of "fighting" for faith and hope is tough to describe sometimes. These words came out from a fight that was very much in process.

The changes in my life and faith between this writing and now are significant. The joy-giving and stability-producing love of God, family, and friends have transformed how I relate to my anxiety. What was written years ago was about something that I kept hidden with fear and shame. I can share it now resting in God's grace and experiencing grace in my relationships with others.

Also, I don't know the "rules" of poetry but I think I was trying to be poetic. Months prior to writing this I got the worse grade of my entire 20 years of formal education as I nearly failed "Intro to College Writing" so please be gracious in your analysis of my 21 year old self's writing. That being said, I hope in the midst of the grimness found below you can be pointed to the Lord.

To live in a broken world is to be hurt,

to be broken and left alone to pick up the pieces.

Avoiding love, avoiding life, I turn elsewhere and

turn my back on family, friends, and regrettably, faith.

Yet, God has never been closer than when I am running away.

I have abandoned his joys, mercy and love.

Pursuing things of the flesh I have tasted

and enjoyed much that the world has to offer.

I have loved money only to squander it.

I have had success in many of my pursuits

God's blessings or the devil's distractions?

Popularity and friends left me alone and scared.

My puffed up thoughts and head deflate with the tiniest pin prick.

Gorging myself on the world I slowly fade.

An empty skeleton, a ghost, tired and terrified.

Bridges burned, loves lost, years gone forever.

To what end has God brought me through this?

Why does he still pursue me?

Why does my family still care? 

I have given up on them

and lost hope in what is real.

Still, God reaches out, tenderly, smiling and crying

glad to claim me, dirty and detestable as I am.

He's forever faithful, forever calling but still I run.

Run so he can't catch me, clothe me, or clean me.

When I stop I see him and remember my infidelity.

Spurred on by fear and failure, I start racing again.

When will I listen or learn?

When will I love?

Oh that my heart could rest in him!

But I can't stop and wait. Can't look or listen.

Why must You still pursue, why can't I stop?

Stop and be caught. Stop and be loved.

Stop and feel mercy and grace. Stop and be healed.

Stop and forget all but you and your saving blood.

Stop to see my dependence and admit my faults and failures

Stop and learn to understand my depravity and your holiness.

Catch me already and hold me still, calm my mind.

Suffocate me with your presence.

Let my eyes catch but a glimpse of your glory

that I might proclaim you to all the earth.

Bring me into your temple so that through your grace

I might go into your creation bold and brave.

I know you hold my future, all of my days are planned.

Still I run my race, run on empty, run nowhere.

I want to be still, be calm, and wait on the Lord.

Only when I feel your love can I love myself.

Pour your love upon me, endless and overflowing.

Prayer for Today

I pray that I live for you today.
Seeking, searching for, and doing your will.
Your Word in my heart and on my lips, morning and night.
Let me love, lead, and laugh in your name.
Humble me with your lavish gifts.
One day from you, lived for you.

And yet, what is one day to you?
You have given me all that I am and have.
All I have for you is this moment, this day.
I measure my days by the rising of the sun.
You raise the sun from its bed in the east
the same as you raise me from my bed every morning.

No, today is not enough for you, nor tomorrow, nor forever.
A life given to you is as a vapor, as dust.
My life is already yours.
My new life as a new creation is yours too.
Empty me of me and fill me with you.
Only you are worthy of yourself.

What you have given me, today, belongs to you.
May you take it and me and do as you please.
Your broken body becomes mine, your sacrifice mine.
The fruit of your Spirit becoming my way of life.
One day of me filled with you for you.
All I can ask is for more of you today.

Do's and Don'ts for 2017

This is as close as I came to New Years resolutions this year. It is a "to-do list" for my walk with God. In some way each item is a reminder of God's grace at work in my life through faith in Christ.

Do:
Stop performing, it won't get you to heaven.
Stop acting, God knows your heart.
Stop running from problems, God helps you enter them with power.
Stop forgetting God, he won't forget you.
Stop resisting, God wants to love you.
Stop fretting over timelines, God is patient.
Stop earning and spending, instead build up treasures in heaven.
Stop judging, God's justice prevails.
Stop trying to earn your way, Christ has already paid in full.
Stop the endless questioning, God is the answer.
Stop the hurting, seek healing from God.

Don't:
Stop dreaming, God uses dreamers.
Stop praying, God will use it.
Stop trying, God will use you.
Stop caring, God gave you those cares.
Stop helping, God gets glory when you do.
Stop fighting, God is with you fighting for your faith.
Stop laughing, God delights in it.

What is on your to-do list this year?