Learning to Say "Yes" to the Right Things

First of all, I'm alive :)  I apologize to those readers who were following my blog during the cancer season of my life.  I have heard a few of you have wondered if I didn't make it when I suddenly stopped writing, but I am alive and well.  I think after a certain point it became difficult to know how to put my experience into words in a conclusive way to be of any benefit to someone else.  As you may imagine, my perspective on life became radically changed, and I had many months of deciphering what it all meant and where exactly do I go from here knowing there was no going back to how life was before it all began, or even what I thought life should look like moving ahead.  Hopefully, I will be able to communicate some of those reflections to you in the weeks ahead, but more on that later.

I am here now because I've finally decided to say "yes" to the right things.  In 2014, we decided to start our own business working from home, and for those of you who have ever done that, or attempted to do it successfully, you know it comes with a lot of hard work and a lot of to-do's!  Last year, we found ourselves overwhelmed at times with the demands on our plate coming from work, family, church and the everyday tasks you need to squeeze in between.  But we found our groove, made mistakes along the way, and survived with all our limbs in tact (and some days, you go to bed thankful just for that!)  Throughout the year, we "tried" to stay focused to do the things God wanted us to do with our time; sometimes we took the necessary information from Him and ran with it on our own (don't do that), other times we said "yes" to something's and turned deaf ears to others (don't do that either), and other times we nailed it. 
Looking back, I have a tendency to highlight the times when I said yes, add them up as a whole, and pat myself on the back for being obedient to God "most of the time."  After all, no one is perfect, right?  Eighty percent is definitely better than fifty/fifty....right?  So, I must ask myself: If you obeyed God one hundred percent of the time, and did more than "try" to stay focused on what He wants you to do with your time, then do you think you would be reaping a better harvest than you are now?  Don't get me wrong in all this either.  God isn't some drill sergeant shouting out orders every day that you must obey or brace yourself for undesirable punishment.  Think of it more as your main communication from headquarters who knows all your skillsets, strengths vs. weaknesses, which areas the enemy will target and when, and who has an intricate, overall view of the circumstances surrounding your life, and the people in it.  Can you live a happy life without ever really listening to what God has to say about it?  Sure.  Is it the best you can experience out of life with who you are and what you have to work with?  Probably not.

Back to my little story... Two months ago, God put it on my heart to start up this blog again, and this time to not really go into another 52 weeks with any particular them or goal in mind, but just write whatever He puts on my heart each week.  Seeing as I've never actually completed a full 52 week journey in my blogging experience, I was leery of starting a new one.  So, I shoved that request on the back burner with a promise to get to it, after life wasn't so busy with the holidays and all.  When we made our plan for 2015, writing blogs was not a part of the plan at all.  In fact, I think I even decided in my little plan that I was too busy to find time to blog.  I went from procrastinating to outright disobeying something God asked me to do.  The Bible calls that sin (James 4:17). 

By ignoring God in a very simple request, I was living in sin, and as a result of that, God's grace began to lift, and I started to feel it.  I started out 2015 not having full use of my eyes for a good two weeks, I couldn't do any work on the computer, and as a result our finances took a major hit.  After working so hard for the past year, and feeling justified in the times I did obey God, I was pretty angry when things started to go sour real fast.  During those two weeks, I had a little tantrum and decided I was going to ignore God even more and shut out the world with all it's demands and wallow in my pity-party.  As you assume, things didn't get any better.  I didn't understand the why behind things going wrong until recently when I humbled myself enough to ask God about it.  He graciously and gently revealed all these things I have written to you now, and I am most certainly humbled by it all.  Many of the things on our plate were God-sized things, and let me tell you God-sized tasks do not work without God in it!

It is not enough to obey God eighty percent of the time, or in the things that are comfortable, convenient, and easy.  Sometimes we need to evaluate our plan and figure out if we ever gave God a place or a say in it.  If I'm too busy to do the things God asks of me, well then I'm just too busy.  One thing I have learned from the whole cancer journey is that we only have so much time, and time is a very precious thing.  You don't get it back, and you don't get do-over's if you waste it.  If God isn't first when it comes to rationing out my time each day, then I am most definitely wasting it.  I think I can tend to keep a tally of the times I obey God in small things and in big things, and convince myself I'm on track, but God doesn't see things the way we do.  He looks at the here and now, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead to win the prize for which He calls us heavenward, always posing the question: "Are you going to obey Me in the here and now with your time?"

Looking back through my little "tally of obedience" I can see that every time I chose to say "yes" to God in the now whether it required making the time, laying my will down and how I think it should be done, or putting someone else's need above my own, every time I experienced light, unspeakable joy, and the essence of what Jesus said "life to the fullest."  Maybe over the next 52 week, I will share some of them with you, not to serve as a way to pat myself on the back for a job well done, but as a means to show you that life with my amazing, omniscient and omnipotent God is incredibly full....even when I completely blow it.  In the year ahead, I pray that I don't just try to stay focused, or say "yes" just when it's convenient or easy, and in faith, knowing it will be a year of adventure doing what ever God designed me to apply myself to.