God promises us that if we look for Him, we will find Him. In James, God invites us to ask Him for wisdom, but then says a verse later that we need to believe for that wisdom - to not be a double minded man (or woman, as the case may be!).
The truth is that as much as I love God, as much as I study His Word and pray, there are times I am filled with doubts. I rationalize it by saying I don't doubt God - I doubt myself.
But really, that's just an excuse, isn't it to doubt God's ability to use me. It also gives me the excuse not to go out on that limb. Ouch!
Today, as I finished up various small tasks before I officially start my vacation days, I felt weary. Really, really exhausted - burnt out. I had a huge project about three weeks ago for the newspaper. It was a true blessing because it will pay for my new computer, but it was about 45 hours of work between Monday and Friday of the same week.
The next week, I had a garage sale. If you are a fellow garage saler, then you know how tiring it is to prepare for one and then work one - even though you spend a lot of time sitting around.
Last week, I was doing double work at the paper to free up this week for some vacation time with my boys. I could barely squeeze out the last article as my brain had already decided it was vacation time! lol
So this Monday morning, I was tired as I sat down to wrap things up. In fact, part of me was already looking toward next week's workload and cringing, and the whisper, "Just give up. What you do won't really matter anyway and then you can rest," hissed into my ear. It was tempting to follow it. Weariness makes me weak. Giving up seemed so welcome.
Then two things happened. First, my God-sized dream team buddy Christine Wright let me know that she was using my post in her "Rebuilding the Walls" series. I hope you'll go read it here and leave some comment love. ;)
It's always so encouraging to me to think anything I write might encourage or inspire someone else. So, this was a real lift for me. It also made me realize I need to get my new blog site up and running this week - no more excuses of being too busy! (I'll share more in a post this week about my new site).
Second was a little bit of serendipity. I really love how God reaches down and meets us where we are at, how He tenderly encourages us when we want to give up (even though He can see the big picture and is probably tempted to roll His eyes at my puny stamina).
A few months ago, I opened a fortune cookie and was tickled to find the following, "You are a lover of words; someday you should write a book." I mean, I've read the whole you'll be wealthy, happy, wise, meet someone type of fortunes in those little cookies for years, but I'd never come across one like this. I saw it sort of as a small sign post of encouragement from God.
Well, it's a tiny piece of paper, and I lost track of it a long time ago. This morning, as I sat down to add some last minute touches to the article I was sending in this morning, I looked down to see a slip of paper. I turned it over and it was the same fortune cookie slip.
I know it could have been a coincidence, but I really don't think so. It was just the encouragement I needed this morning and it brought tears to my eyes to know that God cares about me that much to place a little reminder of my dreams right when I needed it.
Yep, that's the kind of God we serve. Isn't He awesome? How has God encouraged you today? I'd love to hear about it!
~ Blessings, Bronte
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