The Illusion of Efficiency part 2

So here it is a week later and the benefits of my efficiency are: two long gone mutilated cartons of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Some of its remnants may very well be housed somewhere on my hips. The yellow cupcake mix has been stirred, baked and devoured- while still remaining are smaller portions of the vanilla and chocolate frosting awaiting their fate with the chocolate cupcake mix. These will most likely be served as a treat for the first day after school. The bananas were mostly gone by the end of the next day and the poor guys with black spots swiftly moved to the fridge to await their doom as banana bread Oh, and the $1 cantaloupe is but a distant memory. The 'newbie' cashier( the source of my disgruntled wait) is most likely more adjusted to her job and the line at the local discount store is moving much more swiftly.

All this thought brings me back to Ecclesiastes Chapter 1.
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the teacher,
"Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"

In my life, I do admit it. Very often, I can feel like nothing more than a dog chasing it's tail. I strive, I aspire, I plot, and pursue. For a brief few moments...like last Sunday, I can feel atop the world. The coupons line up on their dotted lines and they connect with the sales. The doors open and I breeze through until "WHAM" I'm face to face with the illusion that the glass did have a ceiling after all.

'It all had been going so well....' I whine. 'What happened?' Am I not in charge of my destiny? Do I not have the power to chart my own course? "If it is to be it is up to me" - right? Those 10 simple little words. Maybe. Maybe not.

So, Monday morning, I start off to work. As I merge onto the beltline, my mind begins a merger of it's own. " Every time, I don't spend money on x I'll put it in y. And any extra I get from z will go to help out a." " I will be efficient. I will get my ducks in a row. So ponder away I do. I am feeling powerful, efficient and in charge of my life!

Until....a van switches to my lane and there on the license plates it reads. Deut 8 18
A message from God! I quickly jot down the plate in my notebook and make a mental note to look it up later.

Deuteronomy 8:18 "But remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth and so confirms his covenant which he swore to your forefathers as it is today."

'Interesting.' I thought. So I went back a few verses and read some more.

I am to follow his commands. verse 1
I am to 'humble' myself. verse 2 and 14
I am to praise the Lord for his gifts and greatness. verse 10
I am to remember where/who it all comes from. verse 18

I cannot allow for the pride of my ways to diminish the truth that it is through God that my wealth(efficiency) and blessings come.

For when push comes to shove. This, that and the other of this earth is 'meaningless' as we have no true control over it all. It is merely an illusion that we do.

Meditate on this: Ecclesiastes 11:6-8
Remember him--before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken,
before the pitcher is shattered in the spring, or the wheel is broken at the well
and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God
who made it.

Meaningless! Meaningless! says the teacher. Everything is meaningless.

And yet...everything we do in God is everything.

The Illusion of Efficiency

What's my hurry?

I came in focused. I zeroed in on the deals, calculated my losses and tried to gauge which line would give me my best return.

Then it went south.

I took the risk and walked the length of the store to the 10 items or less line--after all I came in just under the wire with 9. And so there the game of entrapment ensued. The line was longer than I anticipated--but then again they all were. It would take me just as long to turn and walk the other way to the 20 items or less lines. I chided myself to 'be still'.

Yet I couldn't help but wonder if I could pick another line and escape from this discount store unscathed. I was doing so well. I managed to pluck a cantaloupe for a buck, stock up on two cake mixes to assure that the frostings opened this morning for Wyatt's donuts didn't go to waste-- ca-ching! at only 88 cents per mix.

I picked up the milk before we ran out. That'll save me time after work tomorrow. Two half gallons of ice cream for $5 in complimentary chocolate and vanilla. This will keep all the troops happy.

The bananas were just green enough to be the perfect ripeness by the time they've finished up the yellow ones in the basket tomorrow morning. No black spots for us! There were requests for M & M's for ice cream mix ins--on sale! Oops...I forgot Wyatt prefers peanut butter cups... and oila! - an 8 pack of peanut butter cups for merely a dollar magically appeared at a column just before the 10 items or less register. Plop! they went right into the cart.

Yes, smug I was at this job well done.
That was... until... the line slumped to a snail's pace.

Stay tuned and find out... did I jump the line?, did I arrive home with a melted mess? and what exactly did my Lord have to say to me about this obsession with being efficient?

Beautiful

Beautiful by Carmela Mulroe

I look at you in the mirror,
and contrary to what you may believe...
contrary to what others may have told you.

You are beautiful.

Your shoulders straight are beautiful.
Your breasts taut and proud are beautiful.
Your shape and curve are beautiful.
Your hair with color and shine are beautiful.
Your smile and the sparkle of your eyes are beautiful.
Your imperfections created in God's image and plan.....are beautiful.

Strip all away, shoulders, eyes, shape, hair --even imperfections and what lays beneath it all...
fluid, perfect and complete is the beauty you hold within.

Beautiful

Let us all rejoice today in the fact that we are 'fearfully, wonderfully, made'...in God's image and plan. Read Psalm 139 as a wonderful reminder. Embrace your beauty today.

Striving for....what?

Somewhere in the midst of July, just before I put my weary head down on the pillow one night, I turned to my husband and said, " I wonder what life would be like if I wasn't always striving so...if I could just live and not be consumed with what I am doing or not doing."

I must have been tired-so much so that I can't remember his response, or if he even gave one. I believe I was 'out' before my head even hit the pillow. I mentioned my strivings the next day to a friend. "I wonder what it would be like to not strive so?" I don't know that she quite got what I meant. I don't know if I even knew what I meant. As I tried to explain it, it sounded more like a complaint, or that I was tired of the work I was doing. Even now as I write this, I can feel the vortex pulling me in a spiral as I talk circles around this subject.

So....I've looked the word strive up in the dictionary. Here is what it said.

Strive: 1. Try hard, work hard; strive for self control. Strive to succeed.
2. struggle; fight; The swimmer strove against the tide.
(Scott Foresman Intermediate Dictionary)

Ahh, yes. I think I've found my trouble in definition number 2. I've turned my aspirations and callings into a struggle and fight. Is it any wonder that I am so tired at the end of the day? Is it any wonder that God's purpose and joy in my life begins to feel like an albatross around my neck instead of a gift? I begin to compartmentalize and count the ways of wrongdoings. Blame begins to point it's ugly finger.

You haven't written a post to your blog since June 25th.
There will be no posts for July--not a one!

If you want to write that book, you need to write at least two pages a day.
In a month that would be 60 pages--better than NOTHING!

Why aren't you walking every morning? You're not as young as you used to be.
Your body won't bounce back as easily.....

Get those brochures and letters out. People need to know you are
available for presentations.

And so it goes. The blame game runs itself, round and round and round until I am trapped in the center, mired with doubts, shame and blame. How can I unwind all this? How can I shake myself free from these strivings that leave me swimming upstream?

I need to relax a bit and let go of the reigns. Yes, I must work. Yes, I must do my part. But, where does my strength come from, but from God.

"Not by power or might,
but by my spirit, declares the Lord of Hosts."
Zechariah 4:6