The Truth About Being "Strong.."

I have had some thoughts swirling around my mind, and not being able to find the time to blog has been driving me crazy....but my thoughts are this:

During my pregnancy, I thought nothing of myself, I was too sick to think of anything but being done, so pride was gone, and the motivations of my heart were focused on survival by reliance upon Christ. Now that I am "well" again, and as every woman who has ever been pregnant can relate to me in this feeling: I'm alive again! The old struggles with sinful heart motivations have now returned as well. When we are stronger, God is less needed, and when we are healthy, we are able to take care of own needs instead of total reliance on God. It's true when people say that we are weakest, He is strongest! So now as I go about my daily routine, I obviously still have struggles, but nothing compared to what it was like before I gave birth, so even my worst struggles of today, do not compare to my struggles "then.."

As I awoke yesterday morning my self-reliance hit me...and so did the reality of all the changes that have hit me now that my new baby is here...

My need for God returned like lightening and I hit my knees. Rather I called my sweet friend who hit her knees for me...and together we prayed. Reliance on self is a dangerous place to be, when I sit in that place for too long, I pack on all kinds of sinful pounds and they sound a little something like this.."I can do this on my own!" "I'm such a strong person!" "I'm an over-comer!" and to the tune of "I am woman, hear me roar..."

I can't imagine any of those heart attitudes are honoring to my Father, and so today I am humbled...I am humbled because of how desperately I DO need Him, and quickly I can forget that. My Father does SO much for me, and I have one week where I feel overly confident in self, and I'm smack dab back in self-reliance land. I hate that about myself.

Then, as I sat in this place of recognition of self, I felt the whisper of the Lord trickle into my heart and say something to the affect of..."for who's glory to you live?"

I pondered that for a bit, knowing where this thought was leading me, and I confessed, " For my glory Lord..." When I am stuck in "I am strong enough on my own..." I am doing things in hope that others will recognize my strength, and glorify ME. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. That's pretty nasty.

So friends, I refuse to sit here. As I turned my gaze to His word this morning, He met me right where I was at...and words of the Psalms filled my soul with peace once again...

It is true that the second you feel that "twinge" of self confidence/reliance, bowing low before the cross is the only true cure. God is our strength. God is THE source of all life we have. He breaths existence into us, and He controls the air we breath in. There is no room for "self" in that, and for that, I am thankful. I hang on the reminder that I am not in control, and honestly, I am thankful that I am not, for I make lousy ruler of myself.

So today, as I head out into the trenches of life...(for many days, it does feel like this) I realize there can be joy in those trenches when I am taking my instruction from the Lord as opposed to calling my own shots...

On my coffee cup that I got from the coffee shop the other night this was written on it: "Be the ruler of your own life.." Friends, take heed when you see those types of phrases, they are written everywhere, and preached wherever you look, and those words are so misleading. They sound good, and they tickle our ears, but in the end they lead us down a path of much pain.

WE are not the rulers of our own worlds!

I had a lesson in this already, and I'd rather not go down that road again...

SO today, as you consider your own life, why you do what you do, who you do it for, and mostly, where your strength comes from...remind yourself as I am doing today, I much stronger, when I am weak in self-reliance, and strong in reliance on Christ.