NO BAND AID WILL FIX THIS

Thank you to all of you guys who remembered me in front of Abba last night and today. Your comments give me more hope than I can even say.

Amazingly enough, I felt energized nearly all day, and I did not get much sleep last night, either. Everything considered, I don’t see how I had any energy today, as last night I was worn out for several days already, and lack of rest doesn’t cure that. So I know yet again the practical power of Jesus in me, and how God uses us ( all you guys) to help each other.

Having energy is one thing, and getting more rest this weekend will help. But rest is merely a band aid for a problem that has its roots not in the lack of rest, but in over-commitment to physical activities and pride. When the body wears, the mind wears, and once that happens, reliability goes out the window.

This isn’t a circumstance, I am not a victim. I created this mess, and the fixing is going to take discipline if I ever want to end this nasty cycle. I have to learn that I am one person, not two, and that I have limits to what I can do in a single day, or a single week.

Part of the problem, as I mentioned in my reply to Bruce’s comment was that there seems to be this part of me that has “hidden” strength. But that “hidden” strength isn’t what you think it is. It isn’t the Lord. Rather, it is me fooling myself, or at the least, not being willing to admit that this so-called hidden strength is non-existent.

I have always considered myself strong, able to do more than the normal person. I have considered myself able to work longer, even when everyone else is tired, and that, my friends, is pride. Because the truth is, my strength wanes when everyone else’s wanes, but my ego doesn’t want to admit it, so I push myself farther, and I call THAT discipline.

Maybe it is discipline in one sense, but in another, it is utter foolishness. The discipline I need is to stop listening to my ego talking. My ego would kill me to make me look strong, wonderful, better than most, smarter than everyone, and holier than thou. My ego would sacrifice my life for that fake pearl, and would leave instructions for the next of kin to be sure and remember to put it all on the tombstone.

So weariness can be caused by a lack of rest, but in my case, it is caused by pride. And if I continue to listen to my pride, my pride will kill me. Yet I WANT to listen to my pride. It says things I like to hear about me. It takes care of me when I think no one else will. My pride says he is my friend, and all signs seem to say t is true.

Except…except, it isn’t.

My pride is not me, it is an imposter. And that imposter, although a part of me, has run my life for far too long. This weariness will not change unless I do something about it. And I can’t fight it directly, because getting more rest only makes me believe I am actually solving the problem.

The trouble with thinking like that is the same trouble we have with a twenty-four hour day. How many of us silently believe we’d have more free time to do what we want if we had, say…twenty-eight hours in a day? I think on the surface, many of us would say that is true.

But it’s not.

Getting more time doesn’t solve the problem that I don’t manage the time I have well already. Giving me more time is like giving the government more money because they don’t have enough; the problem is, they’ll spend that money unwisely also. The cure isn’t more time; the cure isn’t more rest. The cure is gaining control again of the time I have, which I once had.

It seems like a backdoor fix if you look at it on the surface, but all disciplines are that way. Disciplines don’t fix us immediately, and they do not solve a problem directly. They help us manage what we have been given, so that what we have is not wasted.

The discipline required in this case isn’t to get more rest. It is to understand that I don’t have to do it all in one day, or one week. And it isn’t even a physical work issue, although it certainly seems like one on the surface. But if all our problems could be solved with what we see on the surface, we would all have life figured out by now.

This is a pride issue, and there is only one way to fix that; through the backdoor. My pride, the imposter, isn’t going to give up easily, or without a fight. I don’t learn to drop my pride just because I know Jesus; it never works that way.

So…I have problems with pride. Surprised?

I am not. But Jesus is already working in me to guide me through this, and your remembrances of me have helped more than you know. Just asking for that help is not easy for me. My pride is saying, right now, “You should be able to figure this out on your own.”

And it sounds sooooo true, doesn’t it?

But it's not.