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Kristen Anne Glover

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{26} I Don’t Do Busy

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir

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

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.

Late post

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

31 Days, Faith, From Enemy to Heir 3 Comments

{23} Dangerously Beautiful

31 Days: From Enemy to Heir

Dangerously Beautiful: Day 23 of 31 Days

For Day 1, click on the image above

The days after the prince’s departure soon fell into a pleasant sort of normalcy.  Jewel missed her prince, but she was so comforted by the constant presence and guidance of her Advocate that she soon realized that the prince meant it when he told her it was good that he went away.  She hadn’t understood it at the time, and had even argued against him.

Now she knew: some things are best learned in absence.  Trust was one of those.  While he was with her, she did not really have to believe the things her prince said because he was always showing her that they were true.  He cared for her.  He provided for her.  He loved her. 

Now, he was farther away than her eyes could see, and yet his hand had not failed her.  It made his love even sweeter because it was truer than she had known it to be before, and even more amazing.  How perfectly he had perceived her needs, and how abundantly he had provided for them!   It was not only that she lacked nothing; it was that she had everything.

It was a good thing, too, because there was no shortage of work to be done.  Every day, Jewel opened the vault and filled her hands with the prince’s riches so that she would not be found lacking when empty hands reached out for hers.

She surrounded herself with the words from the ancient scrolls and listened carefully as her Advocate explained them to her.  The little children loved to come and ask her for stories about her prince, and she would draw them to herself and talk about him because she loved him.  Each day, she found more to love, and more to share with those who listened.

One day, an elderly woman walked passed just as Jewel was retelling the story of her wedding day.  “Oh!  You sound just like him,” the woman said, smiling a joyful, toothless grin.  “I thought for a moment that he had come back for me.”

“Really?” Jewel asked.  “Do you really think I sound like him?”

“Just like him.”

The old lady wasn’t the only one who noticed.  Soon, people began to come to Jewel, asking for advice or help because she was reigning in his place.  She was the prince’s representative in the kingdom while he was away, and she was growing more and more like him every day.

Jewel’s heart soared.  It was working!  It was actually working!  She was doing just what the prince had told her to do—she was allowing his riches to make her more like him, and because of that, the entire kingdom could see a glimpse of the prince even when he was far away.

They kept coming.  They kept asking for help with so many good and princely things, Jewel found her days filled beyond capacity.  She barely had time to wave to her Advocate as she slipped out the door to teach the children or visit the sick.  Some days, she did not make it down to the treasure room at all.

Thankfully, no one noticed.

Jewel was relived to find she had been so changed by the prince’s love and care for her that she could imitate him well enough.  She did not need to be adorned with his riches in order to be beautiful like him, not anymore.  She could remember his words and his ways, or so she thought, and she could do so much more good in the kingdom when she spent a little less time behind the wrinkles of a dusty scroll.

Besides, the people–the prince’s own people–needed her, and she could not keep them waiting.  What would they say?  They would think she didn’t care, and that was not true.  She cared deeply, so deeply, that she began to neglect the very provision the prince had made for her because she thought she was doing the better thing.  Surely, spending time in the treasure room was selfish when there was so much need outside the door!

The Advocate’s eyes followed her, but he did not say a word.  In fact, he was more silent than ever, and Jewel was grateful because she did not miss the sting of his sword.

In fact, she was happy to think that there was so little to cut away these days.  She thought she was glowing and radiant and busy about the work of the kingdom, just like the prince had told her to be.  What a wonderful bride she had turned out to be!

One night, she looked in the mirror and was caught off guard by her own reflection.  She was stunning.  Only, she hadn’t noticed it before because she had always seen his reflection in the mirror, not her own.  But there she was, so changed from the girl once called Obscurity.

She was no longer a nothing, no longer an outcast, no longer unloved.  Now, she was beautiful.  Dangerously beautiful. 

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,” her Advocate said softly.  He had taken to speaking in whispers, and Jewel found it annoying.

She turned away from him and smoothed her dress.  “I think I will have some new clothes made.  These don’t really suit me anymore.”

I am like him now, she thought, and she longed to show off some of the glory.

The Advocate stood in the corner and quietly drew his sword.  She would have noticed if she had remembered to fear him.

Thankfully for Jewel, he did not draw it for her.  His sharp eyes were focused on the door to the bride’s own chamber.  A darkness was growing outside her room.  While she was distracted with her beauty, it stretched under the crack in the door and slowly filled the space between the Advocate and her.

Dangerously Beautiful

Dangerously Beautiful

It was the shadow of one who knew, better than anyone, the power of unchecked beauty, and he grinned a terrible, beautiful grin because he knew just what to do with it.

Jewel had all but forgotten him.  But her old master, her old deceiver, had not forgotten her.

He had simply been waiting.

31 Days, Faith, From Enemy to Heir 1 Comment

{13} What if God…

What if God

What if God

Day 13 of 31 Days.  Click on the link here to find day one.

I have been awed at the way God has brought my eyes across Scriptures that directly relate to the story of Obscurity and the prince.  Romans 9:22-23 is one of those.  I love the opening line.  What if God…

What if God, who has the power, authority, and even right to demonstrate His wrath upon us, chooses instead to show us patience and mercy so that we might understand the riches of glory.  What if God did something like that? 

The good new is, He did.

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I believe you can find grace for the mother you are and help to become the mother you long to be—a mom who has the freedom to choose the better things and enjoy her kids right now.

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