Be Still

       I found recently that compared to how happy I was while at school, I was quite depressed at home. My sister even asked what happened to me, she said that I used to glow, and that now my glow had faded. My default face mood was a frown when it used to be a smile, my default sounds were complaining and grumbling instead of the before thanks to Jesus for how good He is. My default mindset was always on the next thing I needed to fix, on the problems I wanted solved, the things that were going wrong, instead of on Jesus, the sweetness of the Holy Spirit, the might and power of God, instead of on things above. My mind was not being controlled by the Spirit, but by my emotions, which were led by the next wrong thing someone did, so no, my mind experienced neither life nor peace. Oh by my word, I let my mind be troubled, I wasn’t trusting either Jesus or God. I thought I could handle it all; hoped I could fix it, if only I said this or did that…

     … Well, I found that the burdens I was taking on; the worrying, the strategizing, the complaining, they clouded my light. I was unable to love, couldn’t focus on God as much. In a bid to handle things my way, I wasn’t doing the things I wanted to the most, and I wasn’t even fixing the problems. I was hurting myself and people around me, getting in the way of God’s work, frustrating everything, and to make matters worse, I felt guilty for it all. How do you handle the situations that come your way? Do you talk to God FIRST about it and see what He has to say (He might tell you how to handle it or not tell you what to do (i.e leave it to Him)). I know that in Psalms 46:10, God says Be still and know that I am God… but sometimes, I fear that if I stay still, everything will fall apart. How silly! How can I handle anything better than the God without whom nothing would exist? I love the translation that says “cease striving”. I need to learn to stop trying to do things, even good things on my own, I should learn to stop trying to fix people and just focus on loving them (can’t do both). I should learn to trust that whatever the Holy Spirit is leading me to do is going to be enough. Finally, I should learn to just sit back and watch God be God, and I know I’ll see some amazing things, because the end of that verse says “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”