This is what fear looks like. Fear rooted in pride (“I hope no one finds out”) grows this way.
Don’t ask me how I know. Or why I am an expert, able to spot it a mile away.
1 John 4.18 amp “There is no fear in love [dread does not exist]. But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear, because fear involves [the expectation of divine] punishment, so the one who is afraid [of God’s judgment] is not perfected in love [has not grown into a sufficient understanding of God’s love].”
“YES, all of you besubmissive to one another (so risky, Lord)
AND
be clothed, totally covered in HUMILITY, for
‘God resists the proud – actually sets Himself against them, opposing them and frustrating them – But He gives GRACE to the humble (His empowering favor-filled Presence that enables you to do what He has called you to do and be what He has called you to be).’
T H E R E F O R E
(because He gives grace to the humble)
Humble yourself
under His mighty hand that He may exalt you in due time. Don’t fight for your way, your will, your rights; don’t struggle to promote your opinion or agenda or to protect your soapbox, striving to be heard.
Humble yourself,
Casting all your
C A R E
all the stuff that concerns you, all of your anxieties and woes, the distractions of life, your burdens and worries and hurts and pain – all of the things that cause you to try to self-protect and puff up so you won’t get run over, all the things that cause you to strive to be heard and understood
casting all your care upon Him
For with great love and care and attentiveness to your daily needs, to the longings of your heart, to the woundedness that needs healing:
He is caring for you.”
1 Peter 5.5-7
NOTE TO SELF: Sometimes the resistance is not the enemy. Sometimes the enemy is my own pride.
I was once a TYPE-A personality, I have been told. I just thought that I was a really great multi-tasker who was highly productive.
Professionally, I was rewarded for being a retail manager who could get more done in less time, using less people, making more money. I needed very little sleep (so I was convinced) and never took work breaks. I was proud of working 16-hours days 7-days-a-week and was able to “persuade” those who worked with me/for me to do the same. Not only did I break the 4th commandment regularly, I did it with pride – sure that my world wouldn’t keep spinning if ever I wasn’t controlling it.
I did not know a crash was coming. I did not know I was living deeply in sin. I knew the Bible taught on rest, and that Jesus had promised rest for the weary, but I had decided that rest was just a state of mind, that if you could get your mind into a state of calm and rest, that was all you could hope for in these crazy days we live in. I didn’t know about the depth of the physical need for sleep. I didn’t know that God doesn’t think you’re lazy if you sleep and that the scriptures actually have so much to say about it.
For the next several days, I’m going to share my story of how I found out the Creator, the God of the Universe, was commanding me to rest, and SLEEP. It turns out these are gifts and so wonderful!
But first – we must determine: are YOU a TYPE-A personality, or living like one? Take the test below
You are commonly characterized as “driven”
You have a strong sense of time urgency
you experience free-floating hostility
you control others
you are agressive
you thrive on competitiveness, a need to win
you have a tendency toward self-destruction, self-loathing
you’re a hardworking, multi-tasker
you out-produce others around you with similiar jobs (even as parent, etc)
you experience chest pain or cardio vascular episodes
your friends and family joke that you are a workaholic
you just think you’re highly productive and committed
you score high in every category on spiritual gifts tests
you are commonly heard asking, “Do I have to do it myself?” because no one else (absolutely no one else) can do it as well as you
having a day off stresses you out
you ache everywhere, but won’t let on
it is all just a house of cards and could crash at any time, but you are making sure that doesn’t happen
If you can answer yes to 4 or 5 of these, you are slowly, but surely and oh-so-needlessly wearing yourself totally out. If you answered yes to 6 or more you are a raging, driven, TYPE-A, work and pain-addicted, adrenalin-junkie, prideful, commandment-breaker.
Hey. I’m not judging you. It takes one to know one. I SEE you!
“TYPE-As…do have a problem with work addiction. They do not notice the lack of balance in their lives, for they are too pre-occupied with leading our national charge toward production, expanse, and success.
TYPE-As…refuse to rest; to them it is an enemy. Also, those around them are made to feel weak if they desire a pause. Consequently, life is full-speed ahead. they work hard, they play hard and they even Sabbath hard.” from Margins
I am getting ready to tell you why it is not only OK to rest and sleep for rest, but God commands it. Who wants to argue with God? Not me…anymore.
Blessings…be at rest, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God…” Hebrews 4.9
