The house is finally quiet now for the first time since early morning, and when the house gets quiet, my mind gets loud. I have been drowning out this internal noise by reading. Which was working just fine until I started reading "Interrupted" by Jen Hatmaker. Not the best choice for quieting one's mind. Great choice if you want your whole world view and value system completely undone. But I'll write more on that sometime when I am not soooooo tired.
I also started memorizing the Sermon on the Mount. Yes. The whole thing. That is three whole chapters (5, 6, and 7) of Matthew. (If you are interested in joining me, you can find the plan here.) Now, before you start to be impressed with my lofty goal, you should know that I am only on verse 3 of chapter 5. So far, so good. But I got to verse 3, which says "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" and I realized I had no clue what that meant. I mean, if I am going to memorize scripture, shouldn't I understand what it is I am memorizing, at least a little? I grew up in church, so this is a very familiar passage, but I had never really "unpacked" it to see what Jesus meant. Since I am no Greek scholar, I did what most any non-seminary, non-scholarly person would do. I Googled it. Google led me to a sermon by John Piper where he broke it down like this:
What Then Is Poverty of Spirit?
- It is a sense of powerlessness in ourselves.
- It is a sense of spiritual bankruptcy and helplessness before God.
- It is a sense of moral uncleanness before God.
- It is a sense of personal unworthiness before God.
- It is a sense that if there is to be any life or joy or usefulness, it will have to be all of God and all of grace.
Ahhh, the "H" word again. Humility. We always wind up here. But this time, it is a different kind of humility... I have struggled and battled, lost and won, and lost some more in the area of humility... at least in regard to my relationships with people... But this is not the same. This is humility before God. Recognizing that I have nothing of value to bring to the table except for total dependence on Him. No gifts, no power, no wisdom... Nothing at all that I can boast in. Seeing that He doesn't "need" me or anyone else to do His kingdom work. That He isn't "lucky" to have me on His team (I laugh even as I type those words). The words that are just stuck in my head are these: "If there is to be any life or joy or usefulness, it will have to be all of God and all of grace." And that is helping to put my restless mind at ease. If it is all Him, and not me, then I can't mess it up.
Less of me, more of Him. My only goal for 2013. (Well, the only important one. I wouldn't be a woman if I weren't trying to lose 10 lbs, you know. That would still fall under the "less of me" category.)
Happy New Year, my friends. You are loved.
