doing less is doing more

Psalm 55:22

"Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken."

 I've spent a lot of time in my life "getting in there" and "making things happen."  I am by nature a very goal-oriented person who works very hard and doesn't stop 'till his goal is accomplished.  I'm a "doer."  This has served me well in a lot of areas in my life--but causes problems in others.  

Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend about what life looked like for me a few years back--all the crazy drugs, debauchery, etc...  We talked about how the drug use was just a way to mask/hide the large amounts of pain I had inside--how I didn't know what to "do" to effectively deal with the hurts in my life so instead, I just made myself numb by using.  Being a goal-oriented "doer" wasn't serving me well in those days.  Then she asked this question:

"SO, what do you do NOW to take care of the pain?"

To be honest, it was a weird moment.  I hadn't thought about that.  And when I DID think about it, I reacted this way:

"Oh, no.  I don't do that.  God does that.  I don't know what He does or how He does it, but He does."

It's true.  I don't exactly know when or how it happened, but at some point I stopped dealing with it and let God do that.  I'd love to be able to say that I've been spiritually enlightened and am just really good at being selfless but I think we all know that's a bunch of crap.  God is "doing" something IN me, and to HIM be the glory, not myself.
 
And so now this question has been nagging at the back of my mind:  What DOES God do?  What is this something He's doing in me?  See, I'm a  "doer." I'd love to figure out what God's strategy is so I can "do" it too!  And maybe, when I'm done "doing" for myself, I can get in there and "do" for others also!


I don't have any idea what God does in our hearts that makes us know that we're loved and heals the hurts of the world.  Further, it's kinda sweet that I don't know--I don't think I want to know!  How freeing it is to not have to worry about that part!  I get to throw my hands up and say "this stuff is above my pay grade--I'm not dealing with it, I'm passing this up the chain of command," and it always gets dealt with. 

Don't get me wrong--I know that God calls us to action.  Faith without works is dead, right?  Amen!  But the action God calls us to is the action associated with His plan, not ours.  And besides, that's not even what I'm talking about here--I'm talking about the beautiful, mysterious, awesome ways he moves in our hearts, softens them, heals them, loves them.  That's the sweet stuff that I wish I could put in a bottle and hand out like candy.

For the past few days, I've been walking around stretching my eyes open as far as they'll go to try and recognize God's signature on things that would lift me up, encourage me, and make me feel loved.  If you've ever done this you know that it doesn't take long to realize God's signatures are EVERYWHERE!  He's put beautiful people in my life and shows me His love through them.  Sometimes it comes in the form of a hug.  Sometimes in the form of an email.  Sometimes a note from a student that looks like this:

Sometimes a note from a friend that looks like this:

No matter how he does it, God spends the day healing my hurts, and saying "I love you."  I am super thankful that I serve a God who takes care of my hurts and I don't have to.  When I try and be the "doer," I end up messing things up.  What if we passed EVERYTHING up the chain of command?  What if when we get ready to "do" we check to make sure it's God's plan, not ours?  When I let God do His job...things get taken care of.  My prayer is that I'll learn more and more to give things over to Him so that He can deal with them. I pray I'll stop "doing" and begin to let God do his work in me. 

Grace and Peace,

-Mikey