faith Archives - Page 7 of 39 - Kristen Anne Glover

{26} I Don’t Do Busy

I Don’t Do Busy: Day 26 of 31 Days

Click on the image above for Day 1

I have been dreading this upcoming week ever since I saw the traffic-jam starting to form on the calendar over a month ago. It makes me tense, seeing all those events stacked up in the same boxes in one little week in October because I don’t do busy.

At least, I don’t do it very well.

Like Jewel in our story, I struggle to keep my hands full of God’s riches when my feet are running in a thousand different directions. Before I even realize what is happening, I have slipped back into self-reliance and I am settling for bare survival.

Perhaps that’s why I chose to fill 31 days with a story about how God has given me everything I need for life and godliness…and how I totally ignore those riches sometimes because I’d rather come out on the other side, half-alive and over-stressed, and shout, “I did it MY way!”

That usually doesn’t work out too well for me.

Sure, I can accomplish the tasks and please all the people, but it’s like putting back on the dirty clothes I came to the kingdom in. I don’t look very good to my prince and I certainly don’t act like a radiant bride.

Consequently, I have made a habit of choosing my activities carefully and guarding my time so I’m not in those situations to begin with. Avoidance has always been my favorite spiritual gift.

I don’t do busy

Usually, it works.

But not this time. This time, the scheduling was unavoidable. Certain important things just happened to coincide with other important things. No one is to blame (except maybe my husband, who didn’t absolutely forbid me to do this 31 Days challenge when I first mentioned it), and nothing can be cut out. I look at my calendar and the impending challenge to my spiritual well-being and I think, “This is a great opportunity to practice what I’ve been theoretically preaching.”

Because sometimes, life is busy and chaotic and overwhelming and nothing can be done about it. It’s just the season. God doesn’t give us a free pass then and say, “It’s okay to be entirely vile and self-indulgent this week. I can see you’re over-committed. It would probably be a huge inconvenience to stop by so I can nourish and strengthen you.”

I treat my prince like that sometimes, like coming to His treasure room is just another box on my to-do list. When the days are particularly full, it’s easy to skip it all together because He’s less noisy about it than my other obligations are. I mean, I can neglect to feed myself from His Word, but I can’t very well fail to feed the children because they whine.

The temptation is to give in to my schedule and let my circumstances dictate whether I am full of Christ’s riches or not. I behave as if God has given me everything I need for life on the quiet days, for the days when I have time for Him.

It’s just too bad the Scriptures don’t actually say that.

God has given us everything we need for every day. That means circumstances can be perfect for filling up on Christ’s riches, or they can be an absolute hindrance to it. It doesn’t matter.

Trusting His provision has nothing to do with circumstances because it is not an obligation. It is not a nice-thing-to-do-if-you-want-to-go-the-extra-mile-for-Jesus. He does not hand out smiley stickers if you pray or read your Bible, as if doing those things earns you extra points with the Big Guy.

It might work that way if God’s riches were Law.

But God’s riches are a grace.

They are given to you, not so you are be obligated to them, but so you can be refreshed by them. They are not the rule book for the game; they are the fuel. If you avoid them, it is to your own detriment, not His.

That’s why, when life is most overwhelming, Christ’s riches are most necessary. On the busy days, we should think to ourselves, “Give me a full tank. I need all the help I can get.”

Instead, we—I—allow our circumstances to shift our priority. Suddenly, it becomes much more important to make 10 dozen perfect cupcakes for the church bake sale than it does to perfect the beauty of the bride of Christ. We might even feel a little guilty about missing an opportunity to spend time with Him, as if it is something we do for Him rather than a blessing He gives to us.

It is a grace. All of Christ’s riches are a grace. They are to be used liberally whenever we need anything for our physical or spiritual life. In other words, they are to be used for every situation in every part of every day, whether the calendar is full or free.

Always.

I am going to be reminding myself of that every day this week because I don’t do busy very well, and I have a very busy week ahead. Give me a full tank. I need all the help I can get.

*Day 27 is coming right up! I hope you’ll join us.

The reason this post is so late: A pterodactyl ate it.

{25} The Lure

My Side: Day 25 of 31 Days

For Day 1, click on the photo above

The Enchanter slipped out the door without making a sound, and Jewel was left alone. Although, she not alone. In the corner of the room, ablaze with furry, stood her Advocate.

Jewel saw him and said, “You can put that sword away now.”

“Can I, Jewel? Or is there still a lie that lurks in this room?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, truly confused. She thought through the conversation carefully, but it only confirmed in her mind that everything the Enchanter said was good and pleasing to her ears.

“I don’t remember him saying anything that wasn’t true,” Jewel countered. “In fact, he was a perfect gentleman! You could learn something from him. Look at you, drawing weapons on a visitor.”

“He was no visitor, Jewel. He was an imposter, and you should never have given him an audience.”

Jewel was astounded. “Weren’t you listening to anything he said?” she cried. “Are you so suspicious that you could not hear the good and kind things he said to me?”

“That is his way, Jewel. When you are in his kingdom, he uses evil as his tool. You were tangled up in it before you were brought here, and you remember how tightly it bound you.

“But the people of this kingdom are best trapped by the good things. It is the good that keeps you from his presence and mars the face of the prince until soon, you are serving a prince of your own making. A beautiful lure can be far more effective than a brazen hook, Jewel, and I’m afraid you have fallen for it.”

The Lure

“No…no, that can’t be. He wants to make a truce with us! He did not come here to trap or fight me.”

“He has no need to fight with those he’s beaten.”

“Beaten? I am not beaten! I have won! Didn’t you hear? The Enchanter has seen something in me he never saw before. He has come to understand the prince because of me, because he knew me once, and he sees how beautiful I am now. He said it right in front of you. He called me a friend.”

“Jewel, do you really think that you could affect a change in the Enchanter with your beauty that the prince could not do with truth? Do you really think you could conquer something he has condemned?”

Jewel rolled her eyes and turned back to the mirror. “Apparently, I can, because he recognized how far I’ve come. I don’t think you appreciate the fact that I’m not the girl I once was. He said more kind things to me in five minutes than you’ve said the entire time you’ve known me.”

“The question is, are those things true?”

Jewel spun to face him. “Of course they were true! Look at me! I am beautiful now. I am like him.”

Her Advocate shook his head slowly. “He told the truth about one thing, Jewel. The prince will not recognize you when he comes home.”

She was hurt, and very much frightened, by her Advocate’s response to the Enchanter’s visit. In one instant, the Enchanter had validated her growth and allowed her to believe, for one second, that she had something to do with it. What was wrong with that?

After living for so long in debt to the prince and his adviser, she felt relieved to give a little back, to add some goodness of her own to the pile. Now, the prince’s own enemy had come and acknowledged that she—Jewel!—was the one who had brought about his change of heart. Wouldn’t the prince be amazed when he heard?

He would rejoice. She was sure of it.

Then the adviser would know what the Enchanter had already figured out: there were some things she could do very well on her own.

“You should be on my side,” Jewel said hotly when she thought about it.

“No, Jewel. You should be on his. I have not moved.”

Angry tears streamed down her cheeks. She could not see the difference.

“Come,” he said, directing her to a seat by the window where a large scroll blanketed an ornate table. “Let me show you.”

“Not now,” she said. “I am tired.”

That was only partly true. Many times in the past, she had stayed up studying the scrolls with her Advocate while the candles burned down into puddles on the table. She did not have the heart for it on that particular night when the Enchanter’s footsteps were still hot on the stones in the hall. She wanted some time to think, alone. An idea had begun to form in her mind. It would condense into thoughts that would lead to a plan that would take her somewhere she never intended to go.

{24} A Visitor

A Visitor: Day 24 of 31 Days.

For Day 1, click on the image above.

The Enchanter slipped in almost without notice. Jewel, the bride of the prince, the upholder of the standards of the kingdom, had made a fatal mistake: she had forgotten to close the gate.

In her righteous busyness, in the rush of skewed priorities, she had neglected to do the simple and inglorious things that needed doing in the kingdom. More important to her in the moment were the jobs that would be noticed when they were completed and rewarded with praise.

No one noticed a door slightly ajar. No one, that is, except the one who had been waiting for just such an opportunity.

“My, how beautiful you have become,” he said to Jewel when he found her standing vulnerable in her chamber.

She spun around. “What are you doing here? Get out!” she demanded.

In the corner, her Advocate’s face seized with pain. Only one man belonged in the bride’s chamber, and the Enchanter was not that man. She should never have even spoken to the intruder. Jewel should have screamed! She should have run to her Advocate and hidden, appalled by the intrusion of this uninvited guest, and her Advocate would have doled out an appropriate punishment, sure and swift.

But Jewel did not. So taken was she with her own beauty that she mistook it for strength and power, and she decided, in that moment, to protect and defend herself.

A visitor

“I underestimated you, Obscurity—but that is not your name anymore, is it?” the Enchanter asked with silken words that slipped around Jewel so seamlessly, she hardly knew what was happening.

“I am Jewel,” she said, raising her chin and looking down at him as best she could, though he was taller than she.

“How fitting,” he smiled, easy and relaxed. Jewel could not help notice how perfect he looked, and not at all terrifying like she remembered.

“I do not know another woman who could have adapted so easily to being the queen of her own kingdom.”

She was not the queen, and it was not her kingdom, but she did not correct him. Even though she stood ridged and wary, she was pleased by the words.

“You don’t need to worry,” he continued, sprawling himself across her couch and looking at her with a grin. “I’m not here to bring you back. I can see that you belong here, and I came to congratulate you. You’ve done well, Jewel. Very, very well.”

She was suspicious, but it was kind of him to notice. No one understood her prior life quite as well as the Enchanter, so no one would appreciate the transformation as much as he.

“In fact, I am astonished by how well you resemble the prince.”

Jewel’s ears pricked up. “Do you think so? Do you really?”

“It’s uncanny.” He let the words roll off his lips slowly, like honey.

“It’s nice of you to say. I’ve worked hard at it.” She didn’t mind taking the credit for the effort because it had been slow and agonizing and she deserved to be noticed for it.

“I can tell. It’s a good thing your people have you as such a fine example to look to. Your prince has been away for quite some time now, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, he has.” In some ways, it felt like the prince had just left. In other ways, it felt like an eternity.

“Are you planning anything special for him when he returns?”

“Well, you see, I don’t really know when he’ll be coming back.”

“Oh?” The Enchanter looked surprised. “I wonder how he could leave such a beautiful bride with no plans to return?”

“He’ll be back,” she said, but Jewel suddenly felt very foolish, like a child who doesn’t yet realize she’s been abandoned.

“I’m sure he will. I certainly would not leave you alone for long.” His smile was easy and charming.

Jewel stood awkwardly in the middle of the floor, listening to the Enchanter’s words and feeling very, very alone. “You should go,” she said hoarsely.

“Yes. But thank you, Jewel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the prince as clearly as when I look at you. Why, if I had seen what the prince saw in you, I would have taken you for a queen myself. Keep this up, and the prince won’t recognize you when he gets home!”

“You are very kind,” Jewel mumbled, but her mind was confused. The words seemed disingenuous, but she could not work out why.

“In fact, perhaps we can have of truce,” he continued. “It’s a bother to be at war all the time.” The Enchanter yawned a slow yawn. “Of course, I will give you all the credit. The prince will be so pleased to find that because of you, we are now friends.”

Just like that, her unexpected visitor left, quietly as he came. Jewel was left standing in her room, back to the mirror, alone.

In the mirror

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