put yourself there

Draft after draft I’ve begun to type. They pile up like a stack of junk mail near the phone. You know what I mean… The unimportant mail. The stuff we could live without.

Nothing valuable like a check from a customer paying their bill. Not a letter of encouragement. No magazines adorned with pictures I can spend an hour relishing while in the tub.

Just junk. Empty words on a screen that don’t seem to amount to much. Makes me feel like a dog chasing his tail. Always coming full circle as he has his eye on the prize but just can’t seem to grab hold of it for the win.

I’ve never been much for seizing anything. I kind of hang back and take what’s left. Spotlights are a scary thing…and catching your tail’s gotta hurt.

Where did the words go? They seem to be there when I drive. When I sleep. When I’m flipping pancakes at the stove for the little people in the house. Then it’s time to produce and it seems like He wants to hold onto those words and not relinquish them to my waiting fingers.

Well, that will never do. So I take matters into my own hands and create those junk drafts that continue to pile up. Yes…meaningless junk.

Truthfully? It’s hard following Him some days. Especially when the answer seems like it’s just hanging there. The low-hanging fruit just dangling from the tree. Tempting me. A broken record telling me over and over I can do it on my own and this waiting game is senseless.

It’s never His voice.

“I can reach it!” I say to myself, while standing on tiptoe.

And I think I’m the one in control of the situation because there! I don’t need help. It’s right there!

It’s easy. “I can just carve out more time in the day and get it done.”

So simple. “I can just redo a few things and I’ll make it right.”

Nip here. Tuck there. Tweak it a bit. Rinse…repeat. Pat myself on the back for achieving victory.

Temptation isn’t always about food and sex and drugs. It’s not always about buying too many clothes or gambling away our money or going into debt to buy bigger and better. It can be something other than winning the argument or the comparison that your kid has the least cavities, best batting average, super test scores or respectful attitude.

We can be tempted not to follow. To just make that decision on our own because it’s so easy to slide on over to the middle of the seat and grab the reigns when we think He isn’t looking.

And it’s our choice, really. To take over. He’ll let us. The power to choose is the greatest power we have.

Yet…

I’ve heard Christine Caine say these words on more than one occasion – “If you put yourself there you’ve got to keep yourself there.”

What a powerful reminder. I breathe a sigh of relief, brood over how truly hard that must be…and just trust. Trust that I have to humble myself to the plan He has put before me – even if I don’t think it looks like the right one at the time. Even if I’m tempted to steer that wagon in another direction to grab hold of the easier option. Even if He has me doing something entirely different for weeks on end that looks nothing like I imagined it to.

I say to myself in a tone much like the know-it-all that I have a tendency to be, “You did ask Him to set your priorities, Jennifer…”

And that’s where I’ve been lately. It’s taken time to fall into a rhythm and adjust to new routines. His routine. And I can only do what He’s put before me. Sometimes He sits me in silence for a reason. Other times…He has me in the middle of chaos to appreciate the silence.

So I look again at the note taped up on the inside of my closet door reminding me to be humble. It’s all in His time.

Yes, I think hard about humility and how this “getting a grip” needs to play out. I think how much easier it is when I just let Him put me where I need to be. Let him keep me where I need to be.

What a concept.

And such a reminder that if any message needs to be playing over and over on my record player…it’s that one.

**Photo credit: entertainmentbuddha.com

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Jennifer Dukes Lee for #TellHisStory

Holley Gerth and Coffee For Your Heart

Kristin Hill Taylor for Three Word Wednesday

Holly S. Barrett for Testimony Tuesday
Holly Barrett

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