Follow the Instructions

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?     Micah 6:8 ESV

I got a new desk!

Actually, I got a box full of pieces with which to build a new desk.  (We went to IKEA!)

So, I got ready to assemble my new desk this morning.  I opened the box to find the instructions so I’d have a plan and know what tools I would need.  Of course I opened the box at the wrong end!  So I began taking pieces out of the box, in search of the elusive instructional leaflet that I assumed was now at the bottom.  As I took out the pieces and laid them aside, I tried to figure out where each piece might go, but I could not remember exactly what the desk looked like.  When I removed most of the parts from the box, I finally found my instructions, which were all pictures and numbers.  Obviously, I like words, but the only word was BRUSALI, the product name.

Step by step, I followed the instructions. It was a slow, tedious process.  Had I not known that a desk was being constructed, I would have not been able to look at the mess I was making and come to that conclusion.  It all just looked like a collection of random boards with screws and pegs attached in random places.  I was not at all certain that I was putting anything together correctly.  At one point, I realized I had reversed a couple of pieces, so I had to remove them and replace them in the correct positions.  Still, what I was building in no way resembled a desk.

I looked around at what appeared to be chaos and yet I felt calm about it all.  Though I could not see a desk with my eyes, I had a confidence that if I just followed the instructions step-by-step, in the end, I would have what I was hoping for.    

I was struck that I seemed to have more faith in IKEA than I sometimes have in my Creator.  I had no trouble trusting that the mess of pieces of an IKEA desk would come together nicely in the end if I just kept doing the next step in the process.  In life, however, I am so prone to fret and to worry and to find myself fearful to take the next step.  I sit in the chaos of my circumstances so often, looking around and thinking that there’s just no way that those pieces are ever going to come together right.  Instead of just taking the next step immediately, I look around and try to figure out if there’s some other way.  The more I look around, the more confused I can become, because what I can see looks nothing like what I was hoping for.

Have you ever been there? Or am I the only one? 

I can so overcomplicate things!  (Just ask my husband!)  Sometimes, it’s just not that complicated.  My desk was not hard to put together.  There were 29 steps in the instruction booklet.  By doing each step, in order, as indicated, I am now able to write to you from my seat at a fully assembled desk.

In Micah 6:8, the prophet was speaking to the leaders of Israel about the plans and instructions of the Lord.  He lists off some methods that the people had used to try to be made right with God – burnt offerings, personal sacrifices, grand gestures.  The prophet encouraged them.  No grand gesture was required on their part.  The Lord simply wanted them to follow His instructions: do what is right; love kindness; walk humbly with Him.

I think those simple instructions are a good starting point to finding order in the chaos of life, even today.  Those three steps, if we will simply follow them, might just bring the peace that we need to walk into that vision for the future that God has planted in our hearts.

Follow the instructions.

…Just a thought…

All Things

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.     Romans 8:28 ESV

I went for a run this morning.  It wasn’t a long run.  It wasn’t a fast run.  But it was so much better than yesterday when I did nothing.  Including a trip to the grocery store, where I parked a ways out in the parking lot and did my usual backtracking in the store to go get the things I forgot on the first pass, I barely tracked 2,000 steps for the day.  Which was more than double the previous day!

My mind has been racing on a million different topics lately, my thoughts spiraling into worry and anxiety regularly. 

I’m far behind on getting my new book to publishing, but it seems that the more I push myself to finish, the less I accomplish.  Which just makes me more frustrated.  And as I write these days, I’m acutely aware of all of the places where my grammar is incorrect – like that fragment I just wrote as though it was a sentence, and the fact that I started this sentence with the word “and.”  But I digress!

My head feels like it’s constantly spinning – sometimes literally.  I blame it on too much caffeine, or too little caffeine, or wearing my glasses for too long, or not wearing my glasses enough.  In fact, I’m quite certain that it is really just anxiety. 

The Lord and I had a little chat about that yesterday as I was driving down the road.  (In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been driving down the road…  Or, maybe that was exactly what I needed to do.  I don’t know.)  But as I poured out my concerns to the Lord, He reminded me that He’s actually got everything under control.  Some part of me hadn’t actually forgotten that, though the louder voice in my head is overly anxious about the details.

In our conversation, my God reminded me that I should go for a run.  At least, I should get a proper workout of some variety.  It’s not that my workout schedule (or lack of workouts) is or should be my primary concern.  This is not my greatest spiritual need, or not exactly.

Our amazing Creator designed us with great care and incredible detail.  He put us together with systems that interact to provide us with life and health - physically, mentally, and spiritually.  As Christians, we often focus solely on the spiritual, while neglecting our mental and physical health.  For me specifically, and I think probably for everyone to some degree, physical activity is vital to my mental well-being.  And when things are off in my head, it skews my perspective on everything.

So before I started writing today, I went for a run.  Tomorrow, I think I may actually workout before I even finish all of my Bible reading.  I’ve not allowed myself to do anything other than make a cup of coffee before sitting down for my quiet time in the morning.  It has felt “out of order” to do otherwise.  But I don’t think that’s really the case, as I think on the matter now.

We like to remind ourselves that “…all things work together for GOOD…” while forgetting that “…ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER for good…”  It’s a subtle distinction, but important.

So today’s thought, though not particularly deep, could be revolutionary.

Take care of yourself today.  ALL of yourself.

…Just a thought…