Redefining Resolutions

I've been working hard to improve my life lately. Switch bad habits with new good ones, be more organised and prepared in my work, maintain a healthy work life balance, prioritise time with God and looking after myself physically... mostly all are with good intentions. Yet some of it is about trying to gain a sense of control as a coping mechanism amid the chaos and uncertainty that exists in my life. 

 

Today I found out that approximately 3000 Sudanese were massacred last week! Perhaps you didn't even know this - even if you watch the news it may not have been told to you. All last week I was meeting people in my community who don't have much support or love in their lives, just battling life daily. So my desire for order in my life and 'being on top of everything' is being challanged immensely! Isn't that just another form of self-centredness and working for my own comfort - possibly even at the cost of others due to the fact focusing on my life means not doing anything about theirs?!

I started writing this post earlier today when I found out about the Sudanese massacre. I am still struggling to finish this post because I am so rattled by what I have seen and heard this week and my response. My heart is troubled. It wants to leap right out of my chest, grow arms and legs and just do whatever it takes to be a part of transforming someone else's life - particularly the youth in this town that I met and the many just like them here.  Yet it feels bound up and helpless as though my rib cage is too strong and my skin too thick to break through. Well perhaps my heart can't break through it all at once - I wish it would... but just as the prisoner in some movie I have seen used a spoon to dig his way out gradually, I am going to attempt to break out too! In fact I think that what is going on in me at the moment is the work of the Freedom Master. I truly believe it is the work of God when our hearts become restless and unsatisfied with the world and our lives. It's the 'shake the building' stage so that we can see we are in a prison and there is the possibility of being free.

So my resolution isn't to be 'on top of all my work and life' anymore. It's to cling closely to God - keep time with Him the main thing I stay in control of and sustain. Then be other people-centred, as in spend more time with people who need it, rather than spend more time writing programs and getting organised. It's really about remembering why I am on this earth in the first place: Love God cause He IS God, a great and glorious God; and Love like God aka like Jesus - can't believe how easy it is to forget that!