I didn’t know what else to do, so I stepped back from the computer screen, knelt down on the tight knit carpet and cried. I begged God to do something. I needed help and it seemed like He was hiding.
Online computer classes were just becoming popular, and my first one was Advanced Pathophysiology. Many times I felt like an imposter during graduate school. Especially in this class. I had to read each sentence in the textbook at least twice. But it was the tech work that sent me swan-diving over the edge.
I had been called by God to go to school. My heart loved it, and even though I felt like a fraud sometimes, my life and how I spent my time had purpose now. But this class might prove I didn’t have what it takes to be successful or obey God completely.
During the first dew days of class, I lost sleep, and anxiety flip-flopped in my chest. But the day the first online assignment was due, my strength capsized. I typed, I clicked, I restarted the system, and nothing. I could not figure out where and how to get my assignment out into cyberspace. I thought, for sure Im going to fail. And where are You, God? This is nothing to You. Can You come here and do something?
With nothing left to say or do, I took a shower. Probably because taking a shower was more productive than going into the kitchen to scarf down the remaining pan of brownies.
A shower was the less guilty choice. And I didn’t need any more failure in my day.
As I kneaded my hair into a thick lather of suds, my class marched into my mind’s eye, elbowing out all my other thoughts. I could see the weight of it; the burden of my class was one enormous hunk of twisted ideas. It took up all the space in my mind like a parked car inside my living room.
I sighed as anxiety picked up momentum drumming again inside my body.
Then the picture in my mind began to expand. In front of the ball of thoughts I saw a clear lighted path. A tiny object sat at the end of the path. But I couldn’t make out what was waiting at the end. The class, a junk metal ball of ideas and feelings, began rolling up the path. As it did, the figure at the end grew larger and my class shrunk in size.
Then I understood. God was seated on the throne at the end of the path. By the time the class reached the throne the tiny speck was swallowed up in His light. God alone radiated light and love to me from the throne. And I realized I picked the wrong vantage point to work from.
God was bigger than my assignments. Bigger than the work weighing me down. I had to switch my perspective. I had to stand on the side of the throne and see the weight of my work and assignments get dwarfed by love.
From that moment on my gaze was fixed on God’s face, and my heart was tucked inside His shirt pocket.
I got an A in the class, and I moved on to new things.
And with every new thing I have to revise my perspective. I need to get out of my own head and walk down that lighted path to his cozy, welcoming throne. Sometimes I revise my perspective right away, but often I suffer under the weight of something before I remember to surrender it to God. We all need reminders to shift our perspective.
What are you working on?
Are you homeschooling your kids? Hosting a small group? Laboring for racial justice?
What is the work God commissioned you to do?
It’s exciting to have a purpose and calling. Finding our calling in Christ is one of my favorite things about being God’s family. But the work can also be extremely stressful. God did not call us to something just to abandon us under the weight of it all.
Let’s pray together.
Prayer and Worship exercise:
Put on your favorite worship song. Here’s a good one.
Visualize the throne however you imagine it. See His love and light and power before you. Walk right up to Him and snuggle up.(Hebrews 4:16) Let the angst of your work and the fear of failure fizzle out around you. God will do what He promised in your life.
God will make this happen. He who called you is faithful. (1 Thessalonians 5:24)
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