Devotion March 14, 2018
15/03/18 15:58
Greetings!
I have been doing these Midweek Devotions for the last 12 years. I have a hard time even realizing it has been that long! I remember when they first started. I had just quit my job because God kept telling me I needed to quit my job and I kept arguing that I couldn’t quit my job but I knew in the back of my head I needed to quit my job.
While I enjoyed what I was doing - I was the director of the Medical Program and teaching classes at a local college but there were situations with that job that had changed and it had become very stressful and it wasn’t until after I had finally quit the job that I came to understand how truly stressed I had become.
I had for the last several years before this admittedly had become extremely overworked. Finances being what they were I worked full time for the school and served two churches on Sundays that were 1 hr and a half from where I lived and on the side taught computer classes for a workforce development program where I would go into businesses with a case of laptops and teach employees basic computer use because it was a time when businesses were switching to computers and the staff were generally computer illiterate. This was pretty stressful too because it generally was a bunch of people who were told they had to switch work they had been doing for years to a computer and they weren’t thrilled about it and I think they thought if they never learned how to use the computer they wouldn’t have to change - so the challenge was real!
So this crazy life went on for several years and I had a family at the same time but in the course of these years children began to drift away to college and life and it was just be and my husband. The computer work had dried up because after several years people had finally adjusted and adapted and were using their computers and then God comes along and tells me to quit my full time job and not to worry and all would be well…….
Right…..
But I did and so now I went from working all the time and taking care of a family to waking up in the morning and it was just me and the dog. And the dog loved it. We got into a routine. My husband would leave for work, I would get a cup of coffee and the dog and I would go up to my office which was on the 2nd floor. It was a good office - an old sun porch with windows on three sides. My husband had built me a big desk and I had a nice desk chair and a great view (which wasn’t always a good thing…).
My dog and I got into such a routine that the dog would actually lead me up to my office each morning and if I actually had something else to do he was really irritated and wasn’t shy about letting me know it!
So what does all this have to do with my Midweek Devotion?
Well, when one goes from working all the time to just (I don’t mean ‘just’ in a bad way but it was quite the reduction in work load)
serving two churches part time one feels this need to fill the time.
So I think what can I do to fill the time and one of the things I decided to do was to start writing Midweek Devotions and send it by email to the church members in the two churches I served. And that is how it came to be.
12 years ago - quite amazing.
Now the issue with these Devotions is that each week I go through this panic. Obviously there needs to be something to include in the devotion - something I can use as an example. Each week about Tuesday morning I start thinking…. and usually by Tuesday evening I am still thinking and I get worried because I am convinced that nothing is going to pop in my head and there is going to be a void and I will be completely stressed because nothing is there and that is when the panic begins to set in and I have a hard time sleeping Tuesday night because I know that I am going to have to wake up on Wednesday morning and go to my office and try to write something and there is nothing there and what am I going to do…..
And every week as I sit down at my desk and click up my ‘sheet’ of paper and take a deep breath and the idea comes (and you know of course where the idea comes from) and then you get mad at yourself because you know that you go through this same routine every week and you would think that I would learn…..
But like most of us - I am stubborn. I still work under the wrong assumption that I will need to come up with something on my own and that there will be nothing there and I forget that every week as I go through this ridiculous panic that God always comes through and there is always something there even if it is just writing about writing about the Midweek Devotion that I am writing about.
Here is one of those instances where I will say to you - Do as I say not as I do! Don’t do what I do but know that no matter what God leads you to do God is very aware of what you need to do and God will always come through. And I don’t know why I (and I’m sure many of you) cannot learn that!
I’m getting better. I know in my heart that God will help me with this because he always does and he always has and I have no reason to believe that he won’t anymore.
So know, know that if God calls you to do something, God will guide you through it. He may not make it easy, but he will always
come through.
Praise God! He came through again…….
Amen!
I have been doing these Midweek Devotions for the last 12 years. I have a hard time even realizing it has been that long! I remember when they first started. I had just quit my job because God kept telling me I needed to quit my job and I kept arguing that I couldn’t quit my job but I knew in the back of my head I needed to quit my job.
While I enjoyed what I was doing - I was the director of the Medical Program and teaching classes at a local college but there were situations with that job that had changed and it had become very stressful and it wasn’t until after I had finally quit the job that I came to understand how truly stressed I had become.
I had for the last several years before this admittedly had become extremely overworked. Finances being what they were I worked full time for the school and served two churches on Sundays that were 1 hr and a half from where I lived and on the side taught computer classes for a workforce development program where I would go into businesses with a case of laptops and teach employees basic computer use because it was a time when businesses were switching to computers and the staff were generally computer illiterate. This was pretty stressful too because it generally was a bunch of people who were told they had to switch work they had been doing for years to a computer and they weren’t thrilled about it and I think they thought if they never learned how to use the computer they wouldn’t have to change - so the challenge was real!
So this crazy life went on for several years and I had a family at the same time but in the course of these years children began to drift away to college and life and it was just be and my husband. The computer work had dried up because after several years people had finally adjusted and adapted and were using their computers and then God comes along and tells me to quit my full time job and not to worry and all would be well…….
Right…..
But I did and so now I went from working all the time and taking care of a family to waking up in the morning and it was just me and the dog. And the dog loved it. We got into a routine. My husband would leave for work, I would get a cup of coffee and the dog and I would go up to my office which was on the 2nd floor. It was a good office - an old sun porch with windows on three sides. My husband had built me a big desk and I had a nice desk chair and a great view (which wasn’t always a good thing…).
My dog and I got into such a routine that the dog would actually lead me up to my office each morning and if I actually had something else to do he was really irritated and wasn’t shy about letting me know it!
So what does all this have to do with my Midweek Devotion?
Well, when one goes from working all the time to just (I don’t mean ‘just’ in a bad way but it was quite the reduction in work load)
serving two churches part time one feels this need to fill the time.
So I think what can I do to fill the time and one of the things I decided to do was to start writing Midweek Devotions and send it by email to the church members in the two churches I served. And that is how it came to be.
12 years ago - quite amazing.
Now the issue with these Devotions is that each week I go through this panic. Obviously there needs to be something to include in the devotion - something I can use as an example. Each week about Tuesday morning I start thinking…. and usually by Tuesday evening I am still thinking and I get worried because I am convinced that nothing is going to pop in my head and there is going to be a void and I will be completely stressed because nothing is there and that is when the panic begins to set in and I have a hard time sleeping Tuesday night because I know that I am going to have to wake up on Wednesday morning and go to my office and try to write something and there is nothing there and what am I going to do…..
And every week as I sit down at my desk and click up my ‘sheet’ of paper and take a deep breath and the idea comes (and you know of course where the idea comes from) and then you get mad at yourself because you know that you go through this same routine every week and you would think that I would learn…..
But like most of us - I am stubborn. I still work under the wrong assumption that I will need to come up with something on my own and that there will be nothing there and I forget that every week as I go through this ridiculous panic that God always comes through and there is always something there even if it is just writing about writing about the Midweek Devotion that I am writing about.
Here is one of those instances where I will say to you - Do as I say not as I do! Don’t do what I do but know that no matter what God leads you to do God is very aware of what you need to do and God will always come through. And I don’t know why I (and I’m sure many of you) cannot learn that!
I’m getting better. I know in my heart that God will help me with this because he always does and he always has and I have no reason to believe that he won’t anymore.
So know, know that if God calls you to do something, God will guide you through it. He may not make it easy, but he will always
come through.
Praise God! He came through again…….
Amen!