Of No Value

I read a line this morning, about keeping the vision in sight. I am very weak in that area, because I tend to see the vision once and then spend the rest of my time dwelling on what it will take to get from here to there (I may have seen my finished addition once; mostly I think about how dusty and noisy and smelly it will be, and how long it will take and how much it will cost). Then I considered the picture I’d seen earlier in the week, when I’d intentionally (as a result of a seriously depressed state) taken time to look at the future.

What I saw was yours truly, sitting in a chair, relaxed, nursing a baby. Perhaps what strikes you most about that picture is that I’m thirty-seven years old and single. What strikes me most about that picture, however, is "relaxed." I’m almost never relaxed. And then I said to myself, but it’s been better since this spring, when I saw how all the parts of me fit together, and realized how stressed I’ve been about that for twenty-five years.

And then I swallowed hard, and admitted the truth: It hasn’t been better since then. I’m nearly as stressed as ever, and generally no more relaxed than I’ve ever been. Not, however, because what I learned about myself this spring wasn’t true, nor because it doesn’t have the power to make me less stressed and more relaxed.

NOTHING works unless you’re doing it.

Part of the cycle that I realized works so well for me includes visualizing as I drift off to sleep. But what do I generally do? I go to bed reasoning and planning and chuck full of self-talk. That doesn’t work for me. Part of that cycle includes playing my keyboard for a little while before sitting down at my desk to work. It’s been more than a month since I’ve done that.

I whine because I’m falling apart, and I want the Lord to rescue me with His supernatural power from on high … and, meanwhile, I’m not doing what I know is best for me. God has given me the knowledge and the power to have a good life, but there is no value to anything He has said to me or given to me unless I do it.

There is no value to directions if you don’t follow them. There is no value to a promise unless you believe it. There is no value to a picture if you don’t look at it, and no value to beautiful music unless you listen to it. There is no value to a plan unless you do it.

We’ve got all the answers, we say, but our lives are wrecks—because we aren’t doing what we know. We don’t pray when we have trouble, we don’t sing when we have joy, and we don’t call for prayer when we’re sick.

And so God’s word has become of no value.

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