Can we even hear God when we are saying "yes" to everything else?

“I mean No is power. No says, 'I'm in charge.' Think about how many times you've said yes in the past year, and how many times you would've liked to have said no instead. Maybe being able to say no is the one thing that keeps us sane. Some people go through their whole lives saying yes over and over again--yes to things they don't want to do but feel obliged to; yes to things that allow other people to take advantage of them, just because that's the way things are, the way things have always been. Some people need to learn how to say no. Because every time they say yes, they say no to themselves.” 

-Danny Wallace, Yes Man

Who knew that the movie "Yes Man" starring Jim Carrey was actually based (loosely) off a memoir written by a man named Danny Wallace?  Mr. Wallace, for a year, decided to say "yes" to any offers that came his way.  

This year especially I have been trying to cut back on saying yes.  Yes, is good, but sometimes we have the tendency to get carried away with it.  I think, "I can handle it.  It's just one more thing" or "God has given me the ability to help with this.  I can fit it in."  Pretty soon, all of those little things, compile and I feel myself drowning and overwhelmed. Then I think, how much did I really consult God on all of those little "yes" answers I gave?  Did I give it up to Him,  submitting to his answer?  Did I actually just sit and wait more than five seconds to receive it?   

When I went searching for a picture for this blog I typed in "to do" and "busy" into the royalty free images search engines.  Nothing quite fit.  Then, I looked up on my cork board, beside my computer, and saw my own "to do list" from the week of Bumble's birthday party.  Yes, some of it was legitimate and then some of it was just extra mess that probably caused some extra stress.  There you go.  By always saying yes, you create extra stress mess! :)

When it comes to our activities and making those yes or no decisions Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-29).  God gives your mind and heart rest when you are wrestling with those decisions.  When I fully surrender my questions to God and I still feel unrest and anxiety I have come to realize that me doing that particular thing is probably not where God wants me to go.  Now, I'm not saying that God doesn't want us to step out in faith, past our anxieties, and go to where He is calling us.  Personally, I have experienced that many times now where God is calling me past my comforts as He calls me to push through my anxieties because He is calling me to something higher.  The difference lies in the fact that even though I am feeling great anxiety and discomfort I know that this is what He wants and I can feel that deep rest that Jesus mentions residing deep in my soul.  I feel God's rest and direction despite my crazy chaotic feelings.  However, there are those times when I feel pure unrest, no deep joy, anxiety, and I do it anyway.

In Lysa Terkeurst's book, The Best Yes, she says, "As I continued to count the cost and assess my available resources, I felt I should say no.  But I also felt I was expected to say yes.  Do I go with what I'm expected to do?  Or what I feel I should do?  Whenever there is a conflict between what we feel we're expected to do and what we feel we should do, it's time to step back from the decision.  And seek clarity from the only source free of the entanglements of misguided opinions and unrealistic expectations.  God."      

 "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

James 1:5

Gosh, we sure do cram it all in don't we?  We say yes to a hundred million things and then complain because we don't have any time to get anything done.  We start to do everything halfway and nothing is done well.  Totally not the way God intends us to be.  I know.  I'm right there with you.  I get frustrated with my girls, with my husband, and with myself because I am overwhelmed and have too many things on my plate.  I don't recognize the things God actually called me to do anymore because I can't see through the piles of my yes mess that I have heaped all around me and on top of me.

I pray for clarity and wisdom a lot.  Especially lately.  Clarity to know see things through God's eyes and not my own.  Wisdom to know when to say yes, when to say no, and which way to go.  I say, "Guide me Lord.  Show me what you want from my life."  After talking to a friend last night and talking to God this morning as I made my coffee He made something very real to me.  He said, "Amber, sometimes people say yes to so many things out of a good heart and sometimes out of guilt too.  However, I have called them to certain things and now they have crowded their lives so full with activities that they cannot hear my will for their life.  They would like to, but their minds, hearts, and bodies are too busy to sit still and hear my voice.  They are too busy to sit and read my word.  They are too busy to listen.  They have overwhelmed themselves and crowded me out.  With all of the noise in their life my voice has become a muffled background that they allow to seep in from time to time, instead of allowing my will and my perspective to saturate their every decision."

I love it when God speaks to me in this way.  I have been going back and forth on a few different decisions lately.  I am not saying that I have complete clarity on them just yet, but what I do know, is that the more I keep crowding my life and my mind with more stuff the less I will be able to hear His voice and His will for my life.  

In regard to making a decision, I love how Lisa Terkerurst continues to say, "This doesn't make me a bad person.  It makes me the wrong person for that assignment."  We have the tendency to make decisions based on guilt and not on God.  Sure, there are things that I say yes to and I get it done, but was it done fruitfully?  Maybe in some ways, but in other ways I felt overwhelmed and the blessings that God has granted me with suffered and were sacrificed in result of me crowding out the voice I so desperately needed to hear.

 In Psalm 46:10 it says, "Be still and know that I am God."

I know.  Being still goes against our nature.  Kids.  Work.  Activities.  It all goes against the idea of just being still.  However, God calls us to stillness and knowing that He is God above all things.  Today I will practice stillness in His presence, allowing my own voice to fade into the background.

Lord, guide me today and the days ahead as I seek your will, your wisdom, and your clarity above my own desires.  Help me to hear your voice in all things.  Give me the strength to follow.

They're gone, I cried, but it's really okay.

This morning I cried.  I cried last night too.  Who am I kidding?  I woke up several mornings this week, feeling a mix of thankfulness, joy, and nausea as I thought about my parents leaving this morning.  Due to current circumstances we weren't sure when they would be able to visit at all and by the hand of God (seriously) they were able to make a week long trip to see us here in Ohio.  
I told my Mom last night how I feel like I go through this same moment and emotion multiple times a year for these last few years.  I distinctly remember being in my parent's bed trying to sleep with her and Reese the night before we packed up our car and moved to Tennessee.  We had sold our house and were staying with my parents for the two weeks before we moved. 

 I remember getting out of their bed in the middle of the night, walking into the living room, and flopping down on the couch, quite pathetically, as my Dad watched TV.  I sobbed.  "Dad, I don't want to go.  I know this is what God wants so I want it too, but I'm scared.  I don't want to leave."

The next morning, we packed up my SUV and Adam's truck to the roof, with the girls, and our two dogs and pulled out of my parent's garage, in the home I grew up in, and started our journey to Tennessee.

  

  We found ourselves in an empty apartment, that we found online, and a POD sitting in the parking lot.
God definitely showed us, as time went by, why He moved us to Tennessee.  I was blown away by the the blessings He unfolded.  However, the first year was especially rough, but I felt God's continual presence so thick through it all.  As I told my Mom last night, "I so vividly remember sliding down the wall, sitting on the floor in tears after they left our home in Tennessee and when my Uncle, Aunt, and cousins left too saying to myself, 'Please don't leave me here'."  I'm pretty sure I did that with every visitor those first two years actually.  I felt absolutely grief stricken in those moments, but it was amazing to see how God grew my heart and steadfastness in those moments.  I knew in the depths of my soul that we were living in God's will.  I may have gone down the path that God intended sobbing tears (and maybe kicking and screaming as well), but I knew that I would much rather live outside of my own comforts and my will than to live outside of His will and stay.
Fast forward 3 1/2 years and 3 weeks after delivering Miss M and we were driving to Ohio to look at homes.  My heart grieved.  Seriously grieved.  I found my groove in Tennessee.  I found my people in Tennessee.  And here we went again.  It was raining, everything was dead, and it was in the twenties in Ohio when we visited.  I was 3 weeks postpartum after a c-section and we were looking at moving.  Enough said right there.

 

In our new apartment in Ohio

However, once again, I knew.  God was very clear that this is what He wanted us to do.  I stared at the grey, rainy, frigid skies.  I glanced around at a new state, unfamiliar places, and fear swirled.  "Where will we live?  Will we find a church home?  Will I make the connections we had in Tennessee?  Now we are even further from Texas.  I'll have to find new friends, new doctors for our family, and I'll just miss the familiarity of my Tennessee Kroger and the friendly faces at the Chick Fil A we frequented.  I will be so alone again.  Adam will go to work and there I sit.  Trying to figure it all out again.  Alone.  This time with three kids and no family support."  Those were my feelings.  However, I was leaving so much out of the equation in those moments.  Isn't that what fear does?  It leaves out God.
In 1 John 4:18 it says, "There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect with love."  God IS perfect love and He is in direct opposition to fear.  So when these fearful, life-draining thoughts were filling up my mind and heart, my thoughts of God were few and far between.
Now, time has passed and once again I have seen how God has provided for us here in Ohio.  After a few months in the apartment we found a home we loved.  The more I surrender to HIS plan and let go of my own I not only see His plan unfold, but I feel my body and mind relax, relishing in the peace that His plan brings.  We think our plans for our journey on this earth will bring us contentment, but true, continual joy, that resonates from deep within can only be created and sustained by the life-giving power and peace of a relationship found in Jesus Christ.
So, last night I cried.  Yes.  There is no doubt that I will again, next time they come (or anyone comes and leaves), but deep within I know it's okay. My Mom and I prayed early this morning before they left.  She spoke of Paul and how he mourned leaving the people in the places he traveled.  As I laid down after they left (it was early!) I felt God ministering to my heart.  I faded in and out of time, thinking about the years Paul poured out into the people in towns such as Ephesus, Rome, Corinth and Thessalonica, amongst many others.  I absolutely love and relate to the scriptures in Acts when Paul is saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders.
"When he had said this he knelt down with all of them and prayed.  They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.  What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again.  They then accompanied him to the ship." Acts 20:36-38
and then it continues to say...
"After we had torn ourselves away (emphasis mine) from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to the Cos." Acts 21:1
Paul grieved when he left these people.  Luke said they had to tear themselves away when they left.  I laid there and thought about all of the hardships Paul went through as he was imprisoned, shipwrecked, beaten, and faced danger after danger as he traveled.  Not to mention, all of the emotional hardships I'm sure he faced as well.  I thought about what motivated Him.  Clearly God.  Jesus.  The cross and the resurrection.  Glorifying Him above all else.  But what else gave Him that everlasting continual peace over death?  Paul didn't just have a dream of heaven and eternity.  It was reality to Him.  Perhaps even more real than the world He lived in.  Paul had a true eternal perspective that gave him hope beyond circumstance.  
"Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.  I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:18-21 Paul knew that He would see these friends that became like family again.  Maybe not on this earth, but he would be reunited with them again in Heaven and as I laid there this morning, letting God pour his word into me, I felt that same peace.  Sure, I am sad now, knowing that while I am on this earth there will be moments where I say goodbye, either as I watch loved ones pull out of my driveway, or as I stand graveside within the cemetery gates.  However, God told me this morning, 
"Amber, in heaven, there are no goodbyes.  That joy you felt when your parents arrived.  That peace you felt as you sat talking with them over coffee and hearing them laugh with your girls.  That joy.  That laughter.  It's forever.  That's my perfect love."
Thank you Lord for this time and opportunity you gave our family.   Most of all, thank you for this glimpse of the eternal joy that awaits us as we spend all eternity together and with you.