More than at any other time in my life I know I'm going somewhere. I just have a limited idea with regard to where. I'm continuing to walk where He has me, but it's a struggle to both focus on being present and remembering to rest. I'm naturally a future thinker and a planner so being in the moment can be exponentially hard when I know God is leading me somewhere. It's probably why He only reveals bits and pieces at a time to me. If He did it any other way I'd run headlong toward wherever He said I was going and then completely miss the beauty of the process along the way.
Which also means I'd miss rest. Rest, I've noticed, is the first thing to go. Well, actually, I only notice after it's gone and I suddenly start feeling stressed, exhausted, and (if I'm being honest) kinda crazy. Most people exposed to me only casually wouldn't notice, but those who are close... Well, I do wonder if anyone's been planning an intervention the past couple weeks. Thankfully, God decided tonight was a good night for one, and here I am blogging as He presses things into my heart.
The Catalyst Atlanta conference was an interesting experience for a bunch of reasons. One of the most notable is that it happened at a time when I had margin in my life. In a place where I had space to think I was bombarded with a call to creativity. I haven't had that area of my brain pressed on in a long, long time. The combination of margin and stimulation sent my poor little brain into overdrive.
God, in His mercy, kept pressing into my heart that I needed to be careful not to take too much on. You see, when I get really inspired I feel like I can conquer the world (or at least make a lasting impression on it) - and that invariably ends up with me in a place God hasn't asked me to be, doing more than God has asked me to do, and I fall into the addictive (and deadly) cycle of "doing." Doing when not asked to by God always equals burnout for me. So God kept pressing on me to watch it, that I was starting to get ahead of where He wanted me to be.
And I sorta suck at listening. Until tonight when God pretty much slapped me upside the head and was like, "SLOW DOWN." Tonight I picked up my notes from Catalyst and looked at what I had written down on the front cover of the booklet. At the end of the conference the emcee asked us to write down three things. One was a statement and the other two were essentially questions.
- "God has given me a creative gift and He wants me to use it more and allow Him to refine it."
- "Allow the Spirit to fill in the blank with the one thing He is telling me to do: ________"
- What one thing do I need to respond to that I learned during the conference: __________"
Oh, yes, that would be God who intends to explain. I get to learn to live in the tension. Yes, He's taking me somewhere very purposeful. Yes, I'm supposed to use the creativity He's given me and allow Him to refine it. And yes, I have to wait. I have to sit in the tension of the longing to do whatever and to go wherever He has for me. And that's a hard tension for me to allow. Everything in me is screaming GO and the Holy Spirit is whispering WAIT.
What a beautiful dilemma. It's beautiful because I am going to learn to live in a tension I've never lived in before - and still put into practice all that God has painstakingly been teaching me for two years. I get to be present and I get to rest in Him and in His plan for this process. I get to sit in "transition" as He reveals to me bit by bit whatever that means. So I'll allow the tension to remain and trust the goodness of my Father as He walks me down a new path that, right now, involves standing still.
