Instant Answer

On the verge of panicking myself into an anxiety attack this morning, not knowing what to worry about more, in utter desperation I bowed my head and said to God that once again my life is in utter disorder in more than one aspect, that I don't know how I got to that point and don't know where to start and how to fix it -- but I want out. Immediately I felt a huge dosage of piece come over me -- not completely pushing out anxiety, but drowning out enough of it to get me moving through projects at work. Within a few hours I accomplished a bunch of tasks. While I was on it, I listened to one of the sermons in the Nehemiah series, preached by pastor Mark Driscoll about three or so years ago. (Nothing like a sermon to get you going...)

The sermon was on "Leading and Laboring" and concentrated mostly on organizational abilities of churches, companies, and leaders. There technically should have been nothing in it to speak to my current woes. But of course God works better than any logic that we have. So I will simply share Mark's words, exactly how he spoke them smack in the middle of an otherwise almost irrelevant to my situation, albeit very entertaining and interesting, sermon.

"... I would say for some of you, this is even a general principle that applies to your own lives. You're tired, you're burnt-out, you're frustrated, you're broke, you're not doing so well health wise. So what you're saying is "I need to run faster, try harder, do more." The issue may be: No, you need to pull back. Stop working IN your life, and work ON it. Do you need to change your place of employment, your diet, your exercise, your schedule, your budget? Do you need to drop outstanding obligations that you can no longer fulfill? Companies need to do this as well, all the time. Individuals must do this also.

One of the indicators that God gives us when we reach those places is pain: physical pain, financial pain, relational pain, emotional pain. It's God's way of saying "it's time to work on your life, not just in it. The treadmill's too fast -- you are not keeping up. It's time to get off and re-look at everything."

Let's just say that it's absolutely amazing to me how God can use old sermons to speak today. And that this time I'm not as head-first into everything that's making me anxious, so it shouldn't be as painful as the last time I had to spring-clean my life. I'm thankful that He keeps speaking to me. Keeps working on me. And keeps pulling me out of mistakes that apparently I tend to make over and over again. It's time to de-clutter. And for those of you who'll be involved -- I apologize ahead of time. But I'm burnt out. I need to get off the treadmill.