My 4yr old son doesn’t have a problem falling asleep. Yesterday I had just given him a bath which is a chore because the boy hates baths and always has. I think the neighbors believe he’s probably being brutally tortured. A couple hours after that he found a black permanent marker. Do you see where this is going? I don’t think he could have covered himself better. I asked him the most obvious question, “Seriously, why did you write all over yourself?” I got a giggle and a smile. That’s about as honest of an answer you could get from a busy little boy. It meant “it looked fun”. So, to the stairs he went for a time out. A few minutes later I found him completely passed out on the hardwood stairs without a care in the world. It looked uncomfortable to me, but kids can sleep anywhere. I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow. Call it a gift if you’d like. I have talked to enough of my friends who tell me it doesn’t always work that way for them. They toss and turn, go through the whole day of events or think about tomorrow’s plans. I don’t normally struggle with that. As a matter of fact every New Years Eve people ask me “Are you staying up until midnight this year?” My answer is always the same. “ It will be a new year when I wake up tomorrow too”. The other week however, this was absolutely not the case.
I had just had a full and exciting day at a meeting my friends and I were leading. We had been working for a few months on launching a new homeschool co op in our area. We had generated our social media page and set up a booth at a local homeschool fair. We had done all the pregame work. We had the location, the dates, the by-laws, the mission statement and the blueprints for how it would all work. What we needed now was parents and kids. This is where the informational meeting came into play. The meeting went well. No, the meeting went really well. We had over a hundred kids registered and paid by the end of the day. The excitement and gratitude I had that evening was palpable. God had placed something on our hearts, we obeyed and he totally showed up. That night however the excitement turned into something unexpected. Anxiety. It crept in before I even realized it and I didn’t even fully know it was taking place. See, the registration forms were constantly running through my head. Everything was on them; parents names,children registered and what parents wanted to teach. “Oh, what classes can we offer? How will we fill all these class periods up? What if I miss someone’s payment? Did I get every child transferred to my google docs? Literally all the questions you could think of in the course of an evening I had, and I had them over and over. I would go to bed with my computer late and wake up early with my computer. I was trying to do everything in my own strength and with little sleep or a restful heart. After a few days of this I had to ask myself why. Why the hyper-focus and the feeling if I dropped one of my glass balls I was juggling it would all fall apart. I didn’t like my answer and you may not like yours if you ask yourself the same question with whatever is causing your internal distress. The ugly reality was I thought pridefully it all depended on me. If this was going to succeed my friends and I would need to eat, breathe and not sleep in my case, this endeavor or it would fall apart.
Do you remember David and Goliath from Sunday School? David killed the huge giant with a single shot of a rock from his slingshot to his head. David attributed that to God, not of his own doing. Much later David became king over Israel. He wasn’t a perfect king but was described as a man after God’s own heart. David had many sons but his son Solomon was who he chose as the next king. King Solomon was given the crown at a young age so he asked God for wisdom to govern well. God said he would give Solomon wisdom and a discerning mind like no one before or after him. During Solomon’s reign the temple where God dwelled with his people was built. I have read through the accounts of the build. The instructions were specific and I can’t fully appreciate the work or process, but with God’s instruction it was accomplished.
I am currently reading through the Bible in a year. You could call it coincidence or divinely scheduled, but during this time of my over anxious heart and sleepless nights I was reading through the Psalms. Psalm 127 to be exact. This Psalm was written by King Solomon. “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Boy was I convicted to my core. It’s not the building, watching or doing that’s the problem. God instructs us to be productive. I think it is the anxious toil. When I start building, watching and planning without the mindset that God is the actual builder and I start to believe it’s in my ability, it’s all in vain. If I toss and turn all night in anxious thoughts that I will ruin it and miss something, I’m forgetting who’s really in charge. I can imagine King Solomon understood this well. Are you building a temple currently? Is there a new or old endeavor you have taken on that is causing you to forget who the actual builder is? Are you losing sleep over anxious toil? That job you applied for that you have no control over the outcome, the event you have planned that you advertised and prayed over but still constantly think about whether it will be successful? The project you started? The move you hope to make? The dream you have? The ministry you run? That thing that keeps you up at night wondering if you’ve done enough. I don’t know what it is but unless the Lord builds the house , those who build it labor in vain. No one likes to fail. Failure feels like you’re worthless. But, I would ask, is your worth only tied to the success of that thing? Or does it rest in the builder?
After the Holy Spirit spoke to my tired and anxious soul through scripture he reminded me again that God has a plan for this homeschool co op. He really only wants my obedience. The verses directly after that were “ Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth”. Psalm 127 3-4. Are you ready for this? Those verses were the verses the homeschool co op had been built on. They had been printed on our boards, shirts and social media pages. After that I slept like a 4yr old boy covered in marker on the hard stairs.
1.When you go to sleep at night what are you holding on to from the day? Can you give that to God to be watchman?
2. Do you believe that thing you’re worried about is truly seen by God? Can’t he handle it?
3. Let’s be honest. Who do you think is truly building your life?
4. Are you eating the bread of anxious toil? Would you give that to God, and continue to hand it over everytime you pick it back up because he gives to his beloved sleep.
*I feel like I should give you an update. We currently have 143 kids registered and 60 classes available. Am I anxious? Honestly…..no, because Acts 5: 38-39 reassures me. “ So in the present case I tell you , keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them, you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” This verse tells me if this co op is all the work of my friends and I then it honestly doesn’t stand a chance. However, If it is God’s handiwork, then a couple mistakes on my part can’t stop it. And I want to be on the side of watching God do his thing.
Living -Watered 