Getting Off the Performance Merry-Go-Round

photo credit

I'm was used to spinning.  The dizzying spin of life, where there are too many things to do and not enough time to do them.  Wanting to find affirmation and approval from what I did, and not in who I was in Christ.  And then my life fell apart.  All my achievements tumbled down upon me, like a Jenga tower played with too long...and I was crushed beneath this pile.  I remember feeling like I had failed.  And miserably.  I didn't know what I know now--that God was working in the midst of all that mess to bring me revelation of His deep love for me.  I didn't have to 'have it all together' to be loved by Him!  (And neither do you.)  


Just last night, I was talking to a good friend, and it all came back to me.  You see, sometimes I still wonder why I went through all those trials--the depression, the medical bills, the loneliness and feelings of abandonment from God and others.  And talking to this friend last night--well, it all came into focus for me again.  God reminded me that He was pulling me off of the performance merry-go-round!  He had, up to that point, allowed me to achieve for long enough.  And it was time for me to realize that my worth was not based on what I did, but on whose I was.  Beloved of the King of kings.  It was a 'severe mercy', to quote Lewis.  


I am still learning how to walk after that fall, picking up and wiping off my knees, and seeing my Daddy smile at me, knowing I don't have to twirl around anymore.  I can stand on the promise of His love.  You can too.  


There is much more to tell of this story....but perhaps just a small snippet will encourage you today to seek  to understand God's deep love for you.  My prayer for you, from Ephesians 3 [HCSB]:


¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. ¹⁶ I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, ¹⁷ and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, ¹⁹ and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
 ²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— ²¹ to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. 


Have a blessed and God-filled day, 


Ruth