Messages in the mundane

Today was mundane.  It started off with some rotten kid attitudes and actions, which we eventually worked past.

God has healed me of much anger and rage in my parenting.  Disobedience and messes used to make me so mad that I would just pop, and then spend the rest of the day feeling awful about it.  Less and less do I have episodes like that, and God has given me the grace to generally stay calm until whichever kid experiencing big emotions is calm enough to talk.

But keeping that peace is no active task.  It takes a ton of energy out of me, and I felt fairly depleted by the afternoon.  We had a busy weekend full of revival and a birthday, so maybe that was contributing to my tiredness too.

Instead of spending the afternoon quiet time with Jesus, I blatantly disregarded Him and read my book instead.  I fell asleep for a few minutes and awoke sad.

I didn’t know why I was sad, other than I didn’t spend much time with Jesus today.  After an incident like this morning I should be running to spend time with Him.

Instead why do I so often want to do something easy and “for myself” like reading a book or zoning out on my phone?

So much of our obedience to Christ is saying no to the temptations that aren’t necessarily morally bad and yes to whatever the Holy Spirit is prompting us in the moment.  I’m pretty sure God led me to read this book, but that’s not what he had for me this afternoon.  He knew I needed to be refreshed by His words, but I wanted something easy to read that I hoped would take my mind off life for a few minutes.

Thankfully, my disobedience isn’t met with rage or anger, but compassion.  God is still ready to meet me whenever I decide to spend time with Him.

He’s always there, always present, always waiting.

It’s on us to sit with Him.