I Trust When Dark My Road

Lists.

I’ve come to sort of hate lists. Yes, I know they are necessary. Yes, it’s a great way to organize, etc., etc., etc. But they remind me so clearly about what I am NOT able to do much more than what I am able to do.

I find that being responsible for something with a deadline (a sermon, an article, a chore) is utterly exhausting. It’s difficult to explain. And as one of our commentators noted, there is this blurry line beween what you can’t do and what you don’t want to do.

The real trick, of course, is first of all making the distinction, second prioritizing, and third being at peace with whatever you are not able to do. For someone with some serious OCD tendencies (not to mention Super-Pastor Syndrome), the concept of making a list and then saying “I can’t do this” is utterly foreign to me.

But I can’t. It’s just not there. I go until I turn into a zombie. Find myself staring at a wall or a tree or something. Stuff keep going by and there isn’t a thing I can do about it. I am trapped in my own mind.

Now I would like it better if there was some sort of “take two bible passages and call me in the morning” answer to this. Be joyful in the Lord! Pray the daily office! Go to confession! I look at a passage like Isaiah 40 and wonder:

But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31 NKJV)

Notice in here the future tense. They shall. They shall. They shall. They shall. It will happen. But we know not when. At least not precisely.

So it comes back to hope once again. Hope in what you cannot see, in what you cannot feel or know with your mind. But that is the essence of faith. Hope in the Lord will never dissapoint. Healing will come. Things will be better in time and certainly in eternity in Christ Jesus. And there we find hope.

So the lists go on. I look at them, do what I can, and rest in Christ, knowing that God will take care of what I cannot.

-DarkMyRoad