Daily Devotion
The Plight of Living a Breathless
Life
By Laura J. Bagby
Guest Writer
CBN.com
– Get busy! Get moving! Get on that frenetic treadmill. Nothing
robs the peace and joy from a Christian's life more than constant busyness.
That busyness for the Christian may be veiled as some superspiritual drive for
excellence, some kind of way to work out our salvation. But in the end it comes
down to just plain fear-driven, can't-stop-moving, don't-want-to-deal-with-it,
got-to-please-everyone busyness.
If that is you, I understand. See, I know what it is like to live a breathless
life and not even realize it, not even think about the spiritual erosion daily
distractions are causing to my soul…that is until my life became literally
breathless.
And I say literally because that is exactly what happened.
When an air conditioning unit quits in the middle of the hottest, sultriest
week imaginable, it takes a bit of humor to beat the heat. After ranting and
raving about my condition, my plight, my rights, my pathetic state, it struck
me as humorous. This was the weekend that the air stood still. I thus deemed
this time "the breathless life."
And then it dawned on me. One evening, while lying listlessly, I realized
something. See, you get really introspective when things don't work out the
way you think they ought to. In times of suffering, questions aren't far behind.
At first I asked the typical 'why me?' But eventually I began to ask instead,
'What do I need to learn from this experience? Is God trying to tell me something?'
I know, it sounds cheesy. But the fact is I believe God had something very
profound to tell me, and my statement said in fun was ironically not far from
the truth.
God had given me this amazing blessing that took inquiry and prayer to see.
To the human mind, this was disaster, but to God this was time for me to learn
about resting in the Lord.
Now if you are me, you would initially note this season as forced rest --
a not too pleasant term for being unable to do what you really want, and that
is to just keep on doing. But when you have done all you can and there isn't
anything else you can do to get back to life as usual, you have two choices:
either you continue being frustrated or you can take life as it comes; either
you can try desperately to regain control or you can give up control.
Not being the kind of person who lives one day at a time, after readjusting
and going with the flow and living each minute to the fullest (because there
wasn't much else to do), I was amazed to find a peace and refreshment that
I confess I have not experienced in over five years.
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