Are you feeling overwhelmed by your schedule? Are you attempting to maintain a smile yet clinching your jaw because you are covered up with work or responsibilities? Anyone who knows about you probably admires how successful you are. You’re making things happen; your influence is expanding and, on paper, your life looks great.
But that isn’t the real story. You know that inside, your soul is dying. Your marriage is suffering, and your spiritual time is now a chore. You can’t wait to go to sleep at night because it’s the only time your mind stops stalking you. Only when you’re asleep, do you have a sense of peace, an unconscious reprieve from all the work, the responsibilities, and the unrealistic expectations. You dread waking up.
You dutifully engage the daily grind; you do it to pay the bills, or you won’t be able to afford the life you think you want. You have fallen into a routine of telling yourself that if you just work hard enough — if you reach this certain level — everything will change. When you make that deal or get that project complete, then you can finally take a break and enjoy your life.
The reality is, you haven’t made good decisions with your money, and you feel as if you have behind. You have an uncontrollable urge to keep going; you can’t let up.
Maybe you did all the right things, the right way, but you created a life where all the responsibility and obligation falls on your shoulders. You can’t get out from under the weight of this burden. If you took a break, it would all come crumbling down around you.
Life hasn’t turned out as you thought it would; now it is up to you to redeem it for yourself. You must make it better. You can’t stop, slow down, rest for one simple reason: you’re running out of time. You’re afraid of not having enough.
You reached the point where you’re too tired to take care of yourself – self-care is just one more task to check off – you’re taking care of everybody else, and you don’t have time or energy for you.
You may seek relief in food or that drink at the end of the day, or you lose yourself in social media or check out in front of the tv. You long to get outside or have some fun or just have a day where there’s nothing, but it never comes.
Eventually, you stop laughing; you stop enjoying life. You avoid contact with friends because you just don’t have the energy. You are irritable, discontent, and ungrateful for the life you have.
You know you have become bitter with God, and you feel stuck – how did you get here? You ask yourself, ‘Is this all there is? It’s not life.’
Everyday feels like groundhog day. The alarm goes off, you get up, there’s another deadline, another expectation, another bill to pay, another meeting to attend, another person who needs you to fix something for them, another problem to solve, and another project to complete.
I know exactly how this feels. I went through one of those times recently.
I went through weeks of working long hours, meeting deadlines, showing up at the next speaking engagement, while still managing a schedule overloaded with clients, running a new business, managing a household, a new relationship, and all great things and things I wanted and loved — but too much of a good thing can end up wearing you out. I tried to do it all myself and manage everything at once, but I was doing none of it well and leaving no time or energy for me or life.
I just desperately wanted to experience life again. I wanted to be happy and to feel inner peace. I wanted a break. I longed to wake up and feel rested and be fully alive and happy. I grew weary of the unending struggle, the constant striving to accomplish more – I just wanted off the crazy train.
And then, something happened. Something changed, and I believe you can experience the same kind of change I experienced.
It was on a Sunday morning; I woke up still exhausted from the previous hectic, overloaded work week. I got up and did some quiet time before church. I had no energy; I could only lay there completely still, motionless. For the first time in several weeks, I told God how I was feeling. I allowed myself to engage with Him in the most honest, authentic way I could.
I said to Him, “Lord, this is not life. There is no beauty, little joy, and no rest and peace. How did I get here again? God, I am desperate for it to change and I am open and willing to see your way out – bring me back to life, your life.”
I laid there a few more minutes and once I got quiet and surrendered and I heard in my Spirit, “Come away with me. Let me show you.” I knew right away that God was calling me to be in His presence. I find His heart and His beauty most in nature – by the water. I knew that’s where He wanted to meet Him that morning. So I went.
I went to my quiet spot at the lake surrounded by the trees, the water, and the birds. There I saw it: His beauty — His creation. I experienced His presence right there by the water with the sunshine hitting my face and the world feeling as if it opens up to display who He is and the life He offers.
As I looked around at the beauty and began to breathe it in, I felt life slowly coming back into my body. As I took in the beauty of the trees in all of their vibrancy, their fullness of life, I was reminded of what I had read in John that morning earlier in my quiet time. It was the passage where Jesus talks about God being the vine and us being the branches and that fruit in our lives is produced only when we are connected to the vine.
What struck me so much in that passage, was how Jesus explained that when our branches are cut off, disconnected from the vine, our Source, our God, that we become deadwood. And that resonated with my soul – because I felt just like deadwood at that moment.
That truth hit me in my center. I realized that I had become deadwood because I had disconnected from the Vine — my source.
In my striving, in my doing life for myself, I was bearing fruit, but fruit wasn’t good fruit – the kind that God produces. It wasn’t juicy. It wasn’t life-giving. It was withering and dry.
I had cut off from the Vine because I had walled off parts of myself to God. I had come to believe the lie that I could make life happen better for myself than God could. That His plan wasn’t FOR ME. I convinced myself that if I didn’t do life, producing fruit for myself that it wouldn’t happen for me.
To be most honest, I was afraid that if I didn’t continue to keep Him out, if I returned to Him to ask for help, then He would punish me for walking away or for wanting something else more than I wanted Him. I thought God would be angry with me for not choosing Him, or that He would take something from me that I had created because He didn’t want me to have it. I feared He might not think I deserved to have it. I was afraid He wanted something else for me, something I didn’t want. I worried that He might take something away and leave me there alone or in pain.
Then, in my desperation for something to change, in my thirst for His life for His peace, I finally got up the nerve to ask myself, ‘What is it that I am grasping so tightly to, that is separating me from God? What is it that is keeping me from reconnecting intimately with Him and letting Him in my life?’
In that moment, I knew.
God wasn’t trying to take anything or anyone from me. He is not a God who takes things away from us. I feared that maybe to punish me from staying away from Him so long, He wanted to take my relationship, my business, or my schedule away from me. Did He want me to “learn my lesson” by making me sit in emptiness, loneliness, aching and He was going to leave me there with no reprieve?
No! I believed a lie about God. He didn’t want that for me. He doesn’t want that for you either. I realized that this lie kept me in the struggle.
He is not a taking God.
He simply wants into my heart. He wants into all of the parts of my heart. He wants into your heart. He wants the same thing from all of us.
He wants full access so that we can connect and He can love us and know us, and we can get to know Him and His heart. He didn’t want to take from me or punish me or leave me without. He won’t do that to you either.
He wants in.
He wanted into the places I had shut him out of – into the places I had walled off in self-protection. He wanted to nourish and water and feed me.
He wanted to bring my deadwood back to life and graft back my branches on the vine.
He wanted to restore me back to what He had created so I could bear the fruit that only He can produce in Me.
He wanted me to learn to abide in Him and He Abide in me. Live in me and me live in Him.
Me and Him – like the vine and the branches – so I could produce fruit.
Do you relate?
You see, it became apparent to me that we get all of this knowledge about God and talk about spending time with Him, yet we back away from Him out of fear or shame. This behavior prevents us from ever drawing near to Him in true intimacy.
We ask Him into our heart, but we never let Him in. Not really or we keep Him out of certain parts or wall off certain places. We only give him access to the safe places in us, and we keep him out of the rest.
And in doing so, we cut off from our source.
Our fruit withers and our branches eventually become deadwood.
We can overcome this by surrendering to Him, we must abandon our own fruitless striving and draw close to the one who brings life that we bear the most beautiful, juicy fruit. It is a realizing that our ‘Daddy’ longs to know us and He is wooing us to His heart and His nourishment if we will say yes to His invitation.
Our calling is to live connected to the vine – and you are called to experience the true Intimacy with your Creator who loves you and sees you – and desires intimacy with you by His Spirit.
You simply have to ask Him into your heart and let Him in – Ask Him to penetrate your heart with His love.
God wants you close to Him – He wants to dwell in you and you in Him, and He is willing to do whatever is necessary to make sure it happens.
The Creator of the universe wants to know you intimately. We feel unworthy of that – Ashamed. Afraid.
Kent Hughes describes the intimate impact of spending time with God. He says, “Think of it this way. Our lives are like photographic plates, and prayer is like a time exposure to God. As we expose ourselves more and more, we absorb the image of his character, his love, His wisdom, His way of dealing with life and people.”
And our hearts line up with His.
We limit our intimacy with God by keeping Him at a distance. And that is a costly decision.
So, today, I ask you the same two questions I asked myself:
- What is the lie you are believing, the thing you are afraid of, the thing you are grasping tightly to, that is keeping you separated from God?
- Are you settling for existing like deadwood and withering fruit when God just wants into your heart so He can produce much fruit in you?
Remember:
He is not a taking God.
He is the Giver of Life.
He is the Creator of Beauty.
He is the Lover of Your Soul.
He is the Vine to Your Branches.
He is the Source of All Goodness.
Will you let Him in?