Thursday, June 27, 2013

No Tip-Toe

I should be working now. It's after 8:00 am. I just let my two guys off for the day, told them to come tomorrow to start the new job. My left eye is sticking shut, and I keep catching myself in a blurred gaze toward the nearest wall. One hour of sleep, and all the day is before me. Canceling things, reshuffling schedules, letting it go. A yes to one thing is a no to three other things. I have to put it all back on the alter of faith. I've been trying to manage, balance, prioritize, and it's the equivalent of juggling ten lighted torches when I can handle maybe two. I've got to lay these down, find the Spirit-ordained rhythm for this day, the next two weeks. Some of the torches will likely go out, some will cause some fires, but the ones that remain will probably be the right amount of heat and light that I require for this path. And I'm not going to tip-toe around it. It's just going to happen. Sometimes you have to step gently into the water, but sometimes you have to storm it. You don't tip toe up to the alter of faith and lay out your burdens all neat and safe. You find your way there, spill them all out in a big pile, and then ask God for the grace to walk away from it in faith, hoping and trusting he will take it and set you free from it. Or maybe He will take some of it from you and give some of it back to deal with, but at least you know that it's been given over and acknowledged, and you should have some more strength to handle it for a while. That's what happens when you go up to the throne of grace boldly. You find help. There's more strength there. There might be more hands to juggle the lighted torches. Either way, you throw them down on that alter (I may even lay myself down there for a while; it's a big alter), you're not quite as responsible for all the stuff that overwhelms, and you come away with some clarity and peace. At least that's what I think. It's happened before. It's a promise from long ago that I still believe. It's just getting there that's the problem. Right now I don't have the energy to map it out and go slow. My gaze at that wall is still blurry. The burdens are heavy. So I'm just going to charge into it, and the sooner I can throw the heavy things down. I don't have the energy to tip-toe into the water; today it's going to be a pretty straight run.