Devotion 364 - Directing

“Life is the sum total of all your choices.”

French philosopher Albert Camus wrote that and I am confident I have chosen to think far too much about my choices.

Every morning as my alarm reminds me it is done snoozing I reflect on my choices from the day before.  I made this wacky decision to drink more water,  singularly the most boring choice I have ever made.  

So I sit in darkness trying to remember if I drank any water the day before.  I think about my conversations with those dear to me.  Did the conversations honor God?  Did God come up in the presence of those I know that do not know Him?

Am I living my passion?  Am I living within His will?

Decisions.

As a working mom decisions often dovetail into directing.  I sit in my imaginary canvas chair and try to orchestrate events, or homework or meals when I cannot physically be somewhere I perhaps should be.

Every yes is indeed a no to something else.

Monday rolled around and all my children were off school.  Each one had some adventure planned and my husband valiantly was going to orchestrate the symphony.  

I decided I could not take time off work;  so I directed.   I knew when friends would come, when they would go,  what they would eat and how much pocket money each of my children had.  

One yes to work and a no to hours of fun.  Directing can be downright lonely. I somehow had the sinking feeling I would regret the work decision.  I got busy.  Busy is the great balm for the soul not facing truth.

I waited for updates.  I would forgo social media forever if it didn’t provide me with updates in those uncomfortable decision moments.

One came, not words but a photo.  A picture, my oldest daughter strolling with her darling friends and there, my little daughter, smiling as wide as Texas holding her sister’s hand.

Strange this,  in my direction, I had scripted both Daddy and Ava going to the bookstore convinced the oldest would not want her young protégé tagging along.

 

 The picture proved otherwise.

Dashing in and out of all the tween stores, Ava was in the middle of the fun and loving every single minute.  I held that phone photo in my hand for a long time.  

Decisions create our life, but directing creates depression.

By trade, I am a leader.  I lead people in business, but these skills whether good or bad find their way into more aspects of my life where they are not welcome.  Sometimes leadership masquerades as control which stands in direct opposition to the surrender the Father has called us to.

I looked back at the day, the decisions.  From the beginning, I knew my husband had the day well in hand.  After a day of his chauffeuring, our little girl called him her best friend.  I did not direct nor decide that, but oh did I delight in those words.

Where we end, the Father begins.  Somewhere in my mad decision making, I must remember where wisdom washes in, where surrender is born and where freedom can live.  It is in me, through Him.

I want to live a life chasing after God.  I want to remember life is not only decisions but an amazing series of divine direction.

Dear one, there are simply no accidents.  I sometimes feel I am randomly reacting to random events, listening to random conversations and meeting random souls. There is simply no random, there is only righteous.

We were placed where we are for a purpose.  We breath the air we are allowed as privilege, and we are gifted in the exact divine way we are to live the passions He has born in us.

Have you been waiting,  waiting for birth?

I get that. 

I had decided to wait to.  I was waiting for this responsibility to end, and that child to grow and those problems to cease, but I am resigning the direction of my future because frankly I am just not that great at it.

I will continue to make decisions good and probably bad, but all under the covering of prayer.  I will cease however putting myself in charge of life.

“Wherever you are, be all there.”  In between those lines of Jim Elliot, he reminds us there are no accidents, and there is no need for waiting.  Be present, be prayerful and be ready to be about His purpose.  Loving and living reflecting the Director, our Jesus.

I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;  I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in your and move your to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.  

Ezekiel 36: 25-27