Sunday Morning

How can you stay outside? There's a beautiful mess inside.

- Yael Naim

Thank you for the morning.

Thank you for a quiet moment.

Help me sort through the busyness of the week.

I draw on you for strength.

Where's the "Panic" Button?!?!?

(This post was written about a week ago, but due to a crazy week, publication has been delayed!)

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Events in my life tend to be thematic. 

Today, in three different mediums, I felt like God was telling me, "Stop worrying. I have better things for you to do." God really knows how to use our human methods of communications to communicate with us!

• Church. Well that's an obvious 'God-Channel.' Pastor Jeff said that all the worrying we do cuts us short of  - stop being scared and running away. psalm 51:17

• Pandora.com. This is a pretty great invention. I typed in 'Michelle Branch' as a music station, and it popped up with Jason Mraz's 'The Remedy (I won't worry my life away).' Pretty ironic? God doesn't want me wasting my energy on the trivial or inevitable.

• Cory Matthews from the '90s sitcom  "Boy meets World" - In the episode "Risky Business" Cory discovers the thrill of betting on horses, and in doing so risks losing his little sister whom he promised to babysit. 

Do I think God uses these ways to communicate with us? Sure. He's always trying to tell us something, but he's obviously not going to come over a loudspeaker and spell it all out for us. 

Dance Like No One's Watching

At my sorority's chapter meeting tonight, we talked about servant leadership. I'd heard the term before, but something about the discussion resonated with recent events in my life. 

A servant leader, one sister said, was doing something willingly and not needing recognition for it. 

But our society is obsessed with recognition. We want everyone to know what we've accomplished, who we know, where we bought our clothes from and so on. Many leaders may simply be in a position because it looks good on the resume. That's bad motivation for any organization!

I also participated in an all-campus sports competition this weekend. It was a ton of fun, and I will totally do it again next year. But what I heard repeatedly after the event was the question everyone's always wants to know:

"WHO WON??" 

Or better yet, "Did I win?" How about, instead, asking, "Did I have a good time?" and "Did I learn something from this?" How about being a servant leader and supporting fellow teammates in their competition or volunteering to do something no one else will? 

I think it was friend who told me recently (or maybe I heard it in a sermon) this: It's not about what you don't do (i.e. I won't lie, steal, cheat, etc.) It's about taking opportunities when they arise. I see this in my life everyday and I know I don't take those opportunities as much as I should. In this past week alone, I saw so many chances to glorify God. We need to ask ourselves: are we rising to the challenges when they are presented?

And when things don't go as we plan (which has been truer now than ever before in my life), we need to know that God's plans are bigger than ours. Sometimes that's tough to accept, but I know I can rest in the knowledge that GOD's timing perfect.

Psalm 16 addressed glorifying God even when we've been hurt. 

I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; 
even at night my heart instructs me.

I have set the LORD always before me. 
Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

This can also be a great reference passage for when you've been a leader and haven't been given (what you think is) due recognition. 

One of my journalism professors would probably say I need to organize my thoughts more clearly. But that's how I see things - a string of events with a related theme. That seems to be how God teaches me. Right now he teaching me that servant leadership glorifies Him...that recognition is an earthly desire...that sometimes I may not get the recognition I think I deserve, that winning isn't everything. 

And you know what? It's not about the final destination; it's about how we make the journey to get there. One of my friends has on her email signature:

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance.