{"id":595,"date":"2014-06-05T09:17:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T14:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=595"},"modified":"2015-07-19T16:15:11","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T21:15:11","slug":"trusting-enough-to-stay-in-my-pajamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2014\/06\/05\/trusting-enough-to-stay-in-my-pajamas\/","title":{"rendered":"Trusting God Enough to Stay in My Pajamas"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a hard time resting. It hasn’t always been the case; up through high school I could take hours to sleep and read and bake without thinking about it–without feeling that nagging sense that I should be doing something else–doing something productive<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Christ's<\/a><\/p>\n

That sense of always needing to use my time to do something feels inherent to my personality, and I suppose in some ways it is. If you’ve ever heard of StrengthsFinder, my #1 strength is “Achiever.” This means that I am driven to accomplish things and I care deeply about achieving goals. But it also means that it’s difficult for me to flip that switch off. I rarely sit on the couch and just think. It has become more and more rare\u00a0for me to read a book “for pleasure.”<\/p>\n

I’m not saying that I’m entitled to rest or pleasure. None of us are promised that. But this morning as I am spending time with my larger family, I was reminded that part of the reason it felt so easy for me\u00a0to rest as a child was that I knew I was not in control.\u00a0I wasn’t concerned about putting food on the table or paying the mortgage or going to meetings or leading. I was being led. I was able to rest because my parents were in control. I trusted that they would take care of things, and so I could rest.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of Psalm 23 this morning:<\/p>\n

\n

The\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0is my\u00a0shepherd; I shall not\u00a0want.<\/span><\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/span>He makes me lie down in green\u00a0pastures.<\/span><\/span><\/em>
\nHe leads me beside still waters.<\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>He\u00a0restores my soul.<\/span><\/span><\/em>
\nHe\u00a0leads me in\u00a0paths of righteousness<\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>for his\u00a0name’s sake.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Even though I\u00a0walk through the valley of\u00a0the shadow of death,<\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>I will\u00a0fear no evil,<\/span><\/span><\/em>
\nfor\u00a0you are with me;<\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>your\u00a0rod and your staff,<\/span><\/span><\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>they comfort me.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Reading even just the first half of this Psalm again, I saw–it felt as if for the first time–that God “makes<\/em> me lie down in green pastures.” For someone like me, who struggles to rest, it is important for me to see that at times, the good shepherd forces his sheep to lie down, even if they feel like they can–should?–keep going. Even if they have a nagging sense that they should go farther. The shepherd knows how much the sheep can take, and when it is time for them to rest.<\/p>\n

I also see that God’s leadership–here \u00a0symbolized through his “rod” and “staff”–brings comfort\u00a0to David, the writer. He knew God was in charge of his life, and that brought him comfort.<\/p>\n

And I know that while it often feels like I am “responsible” for my own life and that I should be doing productive things all the time, I am not really in control. When I trust God’s leadership, and when I let his leadership in my life bring me that comfort that David experienced, I can rest. And when I will let God make<\/em> me lie down and rest–even if I don’t want to, I will learn trust. Because ultimately, resting is a form of trust<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When I rest, I am trusting that God will take care of things, and I am trusting his leadership in my life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So today?\u00a0You’ll find me playing Yahtzee\u00a0with my family, wiggling\u00a0on the floor a little longer with my daughter, and wearing my pajamas longer than usual. And I will tell myself as many times as I need to that I’m not wasting time. I’m learning how to trust the Maker of my life.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Trusting<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a hard time resting. It hasn’t always been the case; up through high school I could take hours to sleep and read and bake without thinking about it–without feeling that nagging sense that I should be doing something else–doing something productive. That sense of always needing to use my time to do something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}