Do you ever just wake up stressed?
It usually starts with some sort of alarm clock annoyance. Or an annoyance at yourself for not listening to the alarm clock the first time.
Then you move on to something else. Your hair won’t lay just so. Your eye makeup looks funny. Those shoes don’t go with those pants and that jacket is going to need some serious ironing before you wear it out in public.
Your head hurts. Your glands feel swollen. Your Diet Coke isn’t cold enough and your purse is too heavy.
You’ve been thinking it’s Thursday since Tuesday and now that it’s actually Thursday you just want it to be Friday.
I could go on. But you get the point.
This morning, I was letting my scrolling marquee of complaints play in my head, and I knew exactly why I was annoyed at the entire world. I had a lunch meeting that I was stressed about. I’ve been the president on the board of a non-profit this year, and it has been a difficult year of service. We’ve had your normal set of challenges, some major shifts on the national level and even what I would call a mid-year leadership crisis. Today is our last meeting for 2012 and I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t wake up thinking: Eight. More. Hours.
I hate seeing that in black and white, but it’s true…and I promised honesty. So there you go. So this morning I just needed a good dose of simple Truth. And here’s what I got:
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. – Colossians 3:23
So I grabbed some Ibuprofen, threw my Diet Coke back in the fridge and dug in. Because honestly, there are just going to be times when we’re weary. When we feel like the work we’ve done has been in vain, or that we’ve somehow fallen short in our duty. When it’s hard to keep going with a willing heart because we just want it all to be over. For when that’s what we want, but it’s not what we’ll get, we have this solution: see it as service to the Lord. See it as ministry. When we allow that vision to inform our actions, we find that He gives us the power and endurance that we need to finish the task at hand.
That’s just what He did for me today. And I am so grateful.