Obedience Over Sleep

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I heard y'all. I haven't been writing much lately, and when I have, it's been depressing as balls. (Yes, I said "as balls." Deal with it.)

That's just the season I've been slogging through. Slogging might be too positive of a word for this situation. More like swirling around the drain of a death spiral with the occasional attempt to climb out of the stream, only to be nudged back into the flow... all while maintaining the "I'm fine" smile, because that's just what tough girls do.

But that's not really what this is about.

I timed out my day with plans to relax, get that illusive yet allegedly essential eight hours of sleep, go to the gym, then head to work. Easy peasy, right?

Wrong. I woke up about three hours into sleep time.

I tried praying, knocking off a couple items from the ever-growing to-do list, snacking, Facebooking, etc. Still wide awake. So, I grabbed the book I've been reading at the slowest possible pace, "Girl, Wash Your Face" by Rachel Hollis.

I'm a pretty fast reader, so spending a couple months on a book is incredibly unusual. The reason it's been taking so long is that pretty much every chapter is super relevant and convicting in some way, so I only make it through one before setting it down to stew and chew on it.

Today was no different. Of course, the first chapter I read (no, I'm not gonna tell you which one, sucker!) was directly related to that thing I was praying about. I kid you not. My brain went into overdrive thinking about her story and the similarity to mine, which I was so not here for. Hard pass.

So, I read another one to distract myself. Spoiler alert: IT MADE IT ALL WORSE. Now, my brain is all fired up on multiple things. Thanks for that, Rachel.

I tried to sleep it off, but that's just not how God works, is it?

Nope. He had to plant a some bloggable thoughts into my brain that were not going to go quietly. Here's how this argument went down.

God: *plants ideas*
Me: Cool. I'll do it later.
God: I've heard that before. You never wrote those posts.
Me: My bad. But, I'll really do it tomorrow.
God: No, you won't.
Me: I need to sleep! I work early tonight!
God: And?
Me: If I go write, I'll be tired and sucky at work.
God: I'll sustain you.
Me: But...
God: WERE YOU NOT LISTENING IN CHURCH SUNDAY? Didn't Koppang just preach about obedience?
Me: Yeah, but...
God: Okay, now you are going to write about obedience first.
Me: *Sighs and grabs laptop.*

Yes, I'm stubborn. Whatever. Don't act like you aren't too.

Pastor James' point Sunday was that obedience to the voice of God will result in a better life. It will solve your problems because you aren't doing things in your own strength, but rather relying on Him to guide you on the path He designed for you. Had the children of Israel obeyed, their lives would have been much easier.

Disobedience is pretty childish, isn't it?

How many times do you hear Christians saying that they want to be used by God, but then prioritize their own agendas over an opportunity to serve? Oh, so guilty on that one. How many times has that been you?

It's pretty hard for God to move when His people are being stubborn children who won't pick up their mess and share their toys. We can pout or throw a fit about it, but what ends up happening? I don't know many parents who will reward that kind of behavior. God is a Father who wants to heap rewards and blessings and goodness onto our lives because He loves us and we are His. But, He's a good and just Father, so misusing our free will can become a hindrance to our own blessings if we let it.

All He wants is obedience.

So, here I am, writing when I should be sleeping. (Well, my alarm just went off, but that plan to workout is now off the table! Ha!) I guess we will see how this obedience over flesh thing works out for me.

P.S. To the prayer warrior who, after the message on obedience, spoke over me that God would wake me up when I'm sleeping to talk, could you redirect that prayer with a better time frame? Please?!

Stuck in Funkytown and Hating It

Normally, I'm a lot more excited about January than I am right now.

I love dreaming up big ideas, setting goals and planning how to make them a reality. Call it the producer in me, but I live for that crap... just not this time around. I mean, it's about three weeks into the month and here I am, still struggling to come up with things.

Goals? Weak at best.

Vision board? Still not set.

30 before 30 list? Hahahaha! Right....

You'd think by now, after about five months of people asking "what's next?" I might have some kind of idea of what that might look like. The cold hard truth is, I don't.

And that is a pretty terrifying thought for a person like me.

I love spontaneity and all, but I really like having at least rough outlines in place or a general direction of motion.

Sitting here, feeling all adrift is the worst. I keep trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with me, but I haven't been able to pinpoint any specific thing as of yet. Maybe it's because I checked off so many bucket list items already. Perhaps the greyness of winter sucked out my motivation. There's that whole part where I've been questioning if I even hear God anymore after that one thing went sideways, so maybe that's the issue. There's also the possibility that I'm just a little chicken who is too scared to think big and outside of the box.

There's a 99.9% chance that the problem is all of the above.

What's interesting to me is how no one seems to have noticed that I haven't really been myself lately. Either I'm a great actress or they just assume I'll snap out of this funk soon enough. I'm hoping the latter is the more accurate guess.

If this seems whiny, I apologize. That is absolutely not my intent. This is just forcing myself to do something other than eat ice cream, read or knit. This is forcing my fingers to rattle of sentences that don't revolve around news of dead bodies or the hot mess blame game that is the government. This is an attempt to fire up that fierce spirit that chases dreams while screaming like a banshee instead of waiting for it to just fall into place for me. It's making myself take a step by acknowledging that I'm in a weird place. The first step toward recovery is admitting there's a problem, right?