I said okay to God a few weeks ago. He had been gently leading me for a while, but His voice got a little bit louder and my fatigue made me a bit more apt to listen. My time spent with God, reading His Word and praying, had become somewhat fruitlessly productive. It was getting done just like my trips to the grocery store and laundry was getting done. A few weeks ago, I heard him say pretty loud and clear: Enough. Enough with a spiritual to-do list. I’ve asked you for your first fruits.
I responded boldly, setting my phone to broadcast Jason Mraz singing to me “I’m Yours…” at 5:45 am everyday. I stumble downstairs in the dark and start my mixed decaf/full-on energy pumpkin coffee and sit down alone with an open Bible at a kitchen table that is pretty much a stranger to quiet.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
At 6am, when the children’s eyes are still peacefully closed, I’ve been getting rained on until I feel like there are pools of His grace around me. The quiet doesn’t last too long—there are no soft pitter patters here anymore; I think everything in these four small to medium sized bodies seeks to squelch out peace and quiet. The race called my day begins, my to-do list calls, things come up daily that demand my attention that can’t even wait long enough to make it my to-do list. And, I just have been doing my best to keep drawing on that early rain of grace that pooled up around me in the early morning when I sat alone with Him.
Over these same last few weeks, I’ve noticed something else. Issues. More than normal. Stuff. Uncomfortable stuff. Hard conversations. Moments that made me throw my hands in the air. A lot more reasons to sigh.
There I was, still “swimming in my pools of grace” and saying, “Seriously, God? But, I’ve been obeying? I’ve been spending time with you. I’ve been waking up early even when I’m tired and reading your Word. I’ve been doing what you want me to do. I don’t get it.”
And, boom.
There I was, confronted with my own pride, my own ick, the shameful realization that there is still some part of me holding onto the idea that God and I are somehow peers and that if I do something for Him, He’ll do something for me, that my acts of obedience warrant some sort of blessing to me defined simply by the absence of trouble. Ugh.
God spoke to me again. This time, His voice was a whisper. There were no “enoughs” or rhetorical questions. Just a gentle word firmly spoken:
I didn’t lead you to give me your first fruits so that I could bless you as if I work only within some sort of contractual relationship with you of give and take. If I only blessed you when you held up your side of that agreement in obedience to me, you’d be in trouble way more significant than what you have experienced lately. I led you to give me your first fruits so that I could prepare you for what you would face, so that you would be ready and you’d experience my blessing in spite of the trouble, in the midst of the Valleys of Baca and the distractions that could have pulled your heart away.
Bring on the hot pumpkin coffee and dark mornings at my crayon-decorated kitchen table.