It was a my-feet-never-left-the-pavement kind of day. The motions of life pulled me in many directions. I desired a still moment with my children and a storybook, desired enough time to wash and dry a cycle of clothes. I desired a clean house and to be rid of this weighty sense of failure. Somehow reading 1Thessalonians added to the heaviness pressing in. I could make a real long to-do list out of that book. I’m good at guilt.
And then I reach part two, the words: “that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.” 2 Thessalonians 1:11
Desiring goodness is not the problem. Having the faith to put what does, or didn’t happen in my day, in His hands-- is. To stop working at times, to stop wearing thin, to stop postponing my children, that is where my deeds prompted by faith lay. Faith means looking to Him for the strength, not measuring my day by the clock, by its progress, but by the opportunities to love that weren’t ignored, the moments to build upon in lives around me.
My every desire for goodness is what gets me up each morning, but it is only by His power that I stay on my feet. It is only in Him that I can have faith enough to live the day He writes for me, not merely on the lines of a self imposed list. It is only faith that can turn what feels like domestic failure into His glory. He is the One-Who-Sees, the one who knows how great are my desires, how earnest were my attempts; He is the One-Who-Knows that I stepped out in faith, and the One who now offers me a pillow of hope to rest my weary head. For tomorrow has desires and deeds-prompted-by-faith of its own.
My soul finds rest in God
alone; my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
Psalm 62:1-2
Do you not know? Have you not
heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the
earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can
fathom.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the
weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar
on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and
not be faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31
Finding your reputation in God's reputation for you is something I struggle with too. If you can really understand it, then you know the guilty sense of letting others down is just a false god. It's too easy to care about everyone else's opinion of us more than we care about God's opinion of us, His daughters. We make an idol of living up to everyone else's expectations. You're not a failure! Let go of that! His yoke is easy and His burden light. Every one of our failures was already paid for!
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