Does Jesus ever make you laugh? He has made me laugh out loud a few times in the last month, the kind of laughter that reminds you how incredible He is and how much we truly are made in His image. The joy He brings and the joy He inspires comes from a belly-laughing Jesus Himself. I love when I rediscover who He is again and again.
Last week I was on ministry overload, and not in a good way. You see, Jesus and I have been dreaming all sorts of dreams together, a continual dialogue that has me waiting with bated breath to see what He will say and do next. But I have discovered when you are sitting in the space of waiting, planning, hoping, and trusting, it is easy for the enemy to attempt to turn this special time of rest into a place of striving, fear, anxiety and mistrust. A place where you can begin to look around at what others are doing and wondering if you have what it takes to create something new, or if you should copy and paste what you see already working for someone else.
So I was in a head spinning, discouraged and confused moment when Jesus interrupted me with a line from one of my favorite viral internet videos. He said to me sweetly but assertively, “Brianna, worry bout yoself.” Here’s the video I’m referring to, in case you have never seen it:
“Worry bout yoself!”
Oh my. Hysterics.
Yup. I derailed a bit there, didn’t I, Jesus? Thanks for the redirect! I started worrying about what everyone else was doing and forgot that this is about YOU and ME. How am I supposed to hear Your sweet voice of peace and direction when my head and heart are swirling with doubt and fighting with one another?
Head and heart don’t always play nice, do they?
When I see others doing their thing for Jesus, I ought to bless their obedience to do what God has called them to do! But I cannot and should not get hung up on the WHAT and HOW of what has been entrusted to them, because my WHAT and HOW are most likely going to look very different.
Jesus is creating all sorts of plans and dreams in the minds and hearts of His people in order to show His power in ways we cannot deny are the work of His hand through the passions, personalities and spiritual gifts He gave us to advance HIS kingdom. What a generous Father to let His kids ALL be part of the family business. Not one of us is gaining the inheritance over another. Not one of us is becoming the CEO to the company of Christ. We are all called up to take hold of our place in His company with our unique design in order to reach the world. And what a grand kindness, the creative and strategic mind of our Lord to invite us to join Him!
We cannot do our part in His work if we get hung up on what our sisters and brothers are doing. Encourage each other, yes! But every once in awhile you’re going to have to go back to your “office” in the company of Jesus and focus on the part of the family business He is asking you to steward. And we are called to do it with gratitude and joy, knowing this is our position in the kingdom and it has been given to each of us to grow and nurture with humility and trust.
A few years ago, a pastor I worked with shared a story with me about something the Lord showed him in one of his many teachable moments as a parent. When his kids were acting crazy and not paying attention, he would yell out the word “noses” which meant to come to him and he would crouch down to his kid’s eye level and they would be nose to nose, eye to eye. It was a reset moment. He shared with me how God yells “noses” to us when we are running around in a panic or rebellion or fear, and resets our hearts.
Eye to eye. Back to the place of provision and strength. Back to the place of obedience and quiet.
Worry about yourself! Align your eyes and ears with the heart of God so that He can get you away from the noise and give you whispers of hope and show you His architectural plans for what He is asking YOU to build. Speak faith and favor over the land He has given you whether that is literal or spiritual. Focus your eyes on His and walk with Him, praying that your “siblings” are doing the same! And sometimes Jesus has us “meet in the conference room” of His business to occasionally join forces and collaborate with each other, to share what Daddy is doing in and through all of us!
But in the majority of hours you spend you will do it with Jesus alone, a calling that you are responsible to and no one else. So how will you spend your time and your talent in those hours? Reading the feeds of everyone else’s hashtags #blessed and #called while sitting on your hands and humoring the lie that you have been left out?
This world festers and feeds on the guise of being #real and #authentic but the picture perfect social media feeds are distorting the truth from reality and attempting to convince us to quit and let someone else do it, or to merely follow what is famous and what is popular. We often quit before we even start.
We don’t have time for that, for the urgency I sense is that we must act now and show the world we won’t be distracted or buy into the diversions of our enemy. And he is scared. Scared of the freedom we have found in following Jesus with our talents. Scared to death that we aren’t conforming to the patterns of this world but being transformed because our minds are being renewed. We are testing and approving what God’s perfect and pleasing will is. We are getting ready. We will not bury our dreams and talents in fear. We will lift our hands in rejoicing and ask for His power to be shown in mighty ways as we do the impossible because we are molded, sustained, and driven by full dependency and faith in the One who owns all things. It isn’t about us. It’s about Him.
“Noses.”
Let’s meet Him there.