Again I want to introduce to you our guest blogger today, Mary Miller.  I hope Mary’s ponderings will encourage and challenge you as much as they have me! ~Jon

Like last night I wanted to get four things done.  Only fours.  That sounds easy enough right? Yeah – I got ZERO of these things accomplished!  I forgot that I had to make dinner.  Then I was thrown off guard when my husband asked me to help him with something.  And sad to say that I went to bed annoyed and woke up the same way.  I was irritable…no way around it.

Every day I fight this little clock, that I have in the back of my head, that says “Ok so that’s 30 minutes with God, 1 hours to do bills, 1 hour for dinner etc.”  So when life doesn’t go according to my plan I struggle…

• I would like to think that I choose to let God work in my life every day
• I would like to think that I don’t fight God for the steering wheel every day
• I would like to think that I don’t need to be reminded everyday who’s in charge

Though God, in His great love, gives me gentle reminders (through feeling overwhelmed or something is off) that I have the wrong focus.  Even though I know that when I leave room for God’s plan and I’m flexible my day is wonderful…I still fight.  I struggle…

But why? The verses from Ecclesiastes below help me to understand that I am often chasing after the wind because the things that are not of God are useless.  Things like accomplishment, achieving my own plan; at the end of the day they do not sustain.  We always need more and more.  Their fulfillment is temporary but God’s fulfillment is eternal.  But we must chose Him each day…

Ecclesiastes1:14 “I  observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless–like chasing the wind.”

Ecclesiastes1:17, “Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.”

Ecclesiastes1:24-25, “A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?” 

Even though my head understands this it’s in my heart where the struggle lies.  My heart understands music.  I think that is one reason why the song “Stupid Boy” by Keith Urban captures this struggle.  It makes me think of our human tendency to fence God and our own soul’s in.  When I read these lyrics below, I see them as a love letter to myself from God.  My prayer is that you do too and that we both stop fighting God’s love.

Well, she was precious like a flower

She grew wild, wild but innocent

A perfect prayer in a desperate hour

She was everything beautiful and different

Stupid boy, you can’t fence that in

Stupid boy, it’s like holding back the wind

She laid her heart and soul right in your hands

And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans

She never even knew she had a choice and that’s what happens

When the only voice she hears is telling her she can’t

Stupid boy, stupid boy

So what made you think you could take a life

And just push it push it around

I guess to build yourself up so high

You had to take her and break her down

She laid her heart and soul right in your hands

And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans

She never even knew she had a choice and that’s what happens

When the only voice she hears is telling her she can’t

You stupid boy

Oh, you always had to be right but now you’ve lost

The only thing that ever made you feel alive

Yeah, yeah

Well, she laid her heart and soul right in your hands

And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans

Yes, you did

She never even knew she had a choice and that’s what happens

When the only voice she hears is telling her she can’t

You stupid boy, oh, I’m the same old

Same old stupid boy

It took a while for her to figure out she could run

But when she did, she was long gone, long gone

Ah, she’s gone, she’s long gone.

Yes, she’s gone

Mary R. Miller