“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:33-34)
It’s been a rough week for me; a struggle simply getting back into writing daily. I’ve managed to remember how much I enjoy it and that this is a huge part of what God made me to do. But I was doing it out of a “have-to” attitude which wasn’t working. I’ve learned along life’s path that it’s always best to do the things that God has called you to do (like publishing daily). But I was coming at it from the totally wrong angle! You see God HAS created me to write, but He has not forced me to write. Just like He has created all women to have children, but He never forces them to actually have them (or keep them for that matter). I choose if I want to live out what I have been created to do. I get to choose if I want to be who I was created to be.
I was created to be, among other things, a wife, mother, teacher and writer. And there ARE times when I can manage to successfully do all four at the same time, but it’s not easy. There are times when one of my “hats” has to get taken off and put on a shelf for a while. It doesn’t mean that I don’t still bring my experiences from one area of my life into the others though. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! No, when I put down my pen and pick up a pan I don’t stop being the writer, the thinker, or the lover of Christ. It’s still a critical part of who I am. And when I put down the pans and pick the pen and Bible back up I don’t stop being the mother of my children or the lover of my husband. I’m simply changing my function while still being wholly and completely me. To completely set aside my family to write would be to deny half of myself, and vice versa. It would be impossible for Tamar to exist, because I would then become someone else entirely.
This week my struggle has been finding a good balance between the two halves of myself. And it’s been HARD. I have felt the pressure of the Potter’s hands this week and have tried my hardest to yield willingly to it… sort of. All summer long I’ve been forsaking my God-given gift of writing, as occupation, therapy and relationship with My Lord. I’ve been focusing on my kids and enjoying the summer with them. Which is fine, to a point. But God made it clear to me, that starting August 1st, it was time to stop playing and get back to “work”. And I have… begrudgingly. Like I said, I was coming at it all from the wrong angle; a grumpy and untrusting one.
The first few days I stayed up until REALLY late in the night to write. Then I would end up sleeping half the day away. With two kids at home, that wasn’t working. And then the Holy Spirit stepped in and made me realize that I was staying up late to write because I wasn’t trusting myself or God to A) help me get up early enough to write long enough to get something “worthy” of sending out into cyberspace. B) Or that I was ABLE to even write still – it’s been almost a year since I’ve written anything for others to read. (Remember the pool story from Monday? That was part of it! A fear of writing again.) c) I wasn’t trusting God to watch over my kids while I write. Despite the fact that I normally write while they’re sleeping because that’s when it’s the quietest and I can think.
So, with God’s help I got through all those things and could move on to my next set of issues… my attitude while I was writing. Or rather, I suppose, who I was writing for. I had been writing with the mentality “they’re counting on me to do this.” As if, for some reason your world would stop turning if I failed to get this devotional into your hands first thing in the morning. I have no idea where THAT concept came from! But it probably came from my pride which is rooted in my insecurity. My writing was no longer a gift or an honor; it was my job, my work. And that’s never how God intended our callings to be! Yes, He created us to do work, but not for it to be work. We’re to do everything as if we were doing it for Him. It should never be that we HAVE to work, but rather that we GET to work. (Right Beth?) We don’t HAVE to be parents, we GET to be parents! I don’t have to be a writer, I get to be a writer – EVERY DAY!
But even after all that, my trajectory was still a little off. And the way that God pointed it out to me really got my attention. I have a friend on Facebook that I have never met in person. But in many ways I’m just as close to her as many of the people I see all the time. Simply, because she is my sister-in-Christ and that in itself is an unbreakable bond. One of the things she said recently really struck me. She has been fasting, not to seek God’s will, or His favor or even to repent but to seek HIM. And it made me question, what is THAT? What IS seeking Him? What do you do? What do you say? How do you go about seeking HIM? And when I prayed about it, that’s when it hit me! THAT’S what TODAY is all about! Not me writing for myself, not me writing for you, but me writing for HIM! Writing down the things that I question and discover along my journey of seeking HIM! FINALLY my trajectory is correct! Or… at least close enough to it to move on.
So, I guess I wrote all that (partially) to tell you this. I am a visual learner and writing things out helps me think because then I can see them. Also, the best way to really learn something is to teach it. So, TODAY is really just my ramblings to try to understand and get to know God more fully, all while you get to read about where God is taking me and what He is teaching me and saying to me. And if you benefit from it, great! And if not, then so be it. From my perspective right now, you all are my accountability group for seeking Him while it is called TODAY (Hebrews 3:13)! J I love you all so desperately! Thank you for allowing God to use you to keep me on track!
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Tamar Knochel 