Devotion 409 - Order

We mamas, we finish washing 162 dishes and bagging pounds of leftover turkey, whipped potatoes and stuffing and then we exhale over a holiday well spent and well loved.

I was soaking in my twelve or so seconds of calm when I heard my youngest son frantically run through the house.

He was looking for a CD to take in the car.  As the sun sets on Thanksgiving every year, our little family packs up for a few days away.

We always listen to radio theater as we drive.  It is always the same story and the same rendition of the Charles Dickens Christmas Carol.

Of all our traditions, this has to be one of my favorites.  By some wonderful holiday magic, if we start it as we leave our driveway, the miracle of Ebeneezer's Christmas Day occurs exactly as we reach our destination.  

I was touched as my son frantically searched.  I figured he knew it was my favorite and was busy rallying the troops in his search.  I had already secured the CD in the car and told him the same.

He seemed uncharacteristically relieved.  Beau lives life by the seat of his pants.  I was frankly surprised he even remembered the CD but as we loaded in the car and pressed play, he insisted we turn up the volume.  I looked at him quizzically.  He emphatically replied, “I love this mom, it’s how we do this trip.”

This from my son who has spent fourteen years on the edge of an envelope never seemingly sure what’s ahead but loving every moment of where he is at.  He remembered.  This little story that I have treasured for so many years now meant something to him as well.  It brought joy but also order.  It was to him as much to me how we “do this.”

I like knowing how we “do this.” Simply put, I crave order. Like me, my daughters thrive on order.  It was a welcome albeit shocking phenomenon to see my son embrace it as well.

For three weeks, my youngest daughter had asked about this little journey upon which we were now embarking.  She would ask how many days until we left, when we would arrive, what we would do the first day, the next morning and on and on after that.  For a child who does not yet tell time, the explanation was daunting at best.

Then my oldest daughter relaxes through 75% of the trip knowing full well we are people of tradition. She knows what comes first, second and third. She loves the order and gleefully follows it.  But then as the day ends on our last afternoon, she pursues me with the questions of what is to come upon our return home, what we will have for dinner, when we will put up our tree and on and on. I suffer from the exact same order disorder so I completely relate to her quest. 

We are indeed people of order, created by a God of order.

God didn’t create bugs before He had formed the air and the dirt that would be their home, nor did He create man before He could give him a role and a purpose for the land over which he would rule.

This desire, this unquenchable desire to make things work, comes from Him.

Thousands of years removed from Adam, our goal is the same.  We want purpose, we crave passion and we want to navigate and postulate the supernatural into a formula that seems natural.

We have embraced the notion that if we thrust enough order forward, balance will be our reward.  I am convinced in our own strength there is absolutely no such thing.

Balance and order simply do not coexist outside of an eternal Father that can hold the heavy when the burdens outweigh us.

We set things in order. We proclaim Jesus will be first, then family, friends and then work.  It all sounds fabulously beautiful until each one of those lovelies pulls us in diverse and all urgent directions.

We go back and we revisit how when we got the order right, the balance is so incredibly off.

I am learning ever so slowly, it is not a lack of trying or doing, or list making or multi tasking.  It is actually giving God enough space to work.

We have to pour ourselves out, we have to get out of the way, we have to release control and allow God in.  He is the keys to the prison of selfishness. Surrendering to Him all our plans, all our purposes, all our doubts and all our desires opens up our hearts to extraordinary freedom.

He does not live in the confines of our time our space or our resources; He works in the eternal and unimaginable abundance.

I exchange my fear, my inability and my inadequacy for courage.

I trade my lack of time and my lack of talent for a miracle working Creator.

I give up my idea of balance for the all sufficient One who fills the gaps with grace.

It is a transaction quite devoid of reason…empty to be full, surrendered to be free, transparent to reflect glory.  Every piece of it defies our logic yet every part of Him fills our souls.

We are not required to create the order, we are only asked to follow it. It is Him then everything else, but to embrace the else we must be willing to release the self.  Release and find Him in the most uncanny beautiful spaces.  See without schedule, hear without noise and follow the Father.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13