The list…

Do you ever feel like your life is defined by lists? You have a grocery list, a list of chores, a list of books to read—we have our lists of tasks to do each day at work. We have our lists of friends. We have our lists of likes and dislikes. It is easy sometimes for my mind to be consumed with how overwhelming all these lists are and what they expect from me. Do you think God has a list for you too?

I believe that God does have things he wants us to accomplish, but I don’t believe that our salvation and our eternity is tied to a list. There is no “check list” to get into heaven. Our lives may be consumed with our never ending and always growing lists of tasks and expectations, but God’s love is not defined by that.

This week I was reading a devotional and it referenced a verse in Ephesians.  My eyes actually read it, like it was the first time. I’m not sure if it was just because I was reading from a different translation and not my bible, or that I mistook the verses address at first, but it hit me hard!

               Ephesians 14-19 The Message^__

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

I am a person who can be easily consumed by her lists of tasks. In the past couple months, I have been a person who was burdened and overwhelmed at times by those same lists, this verse really struck a nerve! “Ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength”. I know that I desperately need that inner strength right now. I—We—This Nation—need to ask him “that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love”!  

So, as I sit in my living room, defined by who I am—daughter, sister, mother, wife, nana, employee, friend, student, writer, Sunday school teacher, youth group leader…my lists press down on me. But HE is my inner strength! HE is my hope and with him, my feet are planted firmly on his love. I need not fear his check list, because he doesn’t have one for me.