Do or Do Not?

I just re-potted my quarantine plants today. I bought a nice basket of flowers right before lockdown began here in England so I’d have something pretty in my room. It was beautiful when I got it, but now the four different plants have gotten so huge that I needed to re-pot a couple of them so they have room to keep growing. It has been astonishing how FAST they grow. One of my favorite things is waking up every morning, opening my curtains, and investigating my plants, watching the new leaves that have unfurled or the new buds that have developed since yesterday.

If you read my early corona posts (actually…maybe even up to my last post), I was so excited to be able to serve during such a time as this. I was Miss “Here am I, send me!” But no matter what I tried to do, how I tried to serve, the door was shut. All I wanted to do was DO. And God said no.

It ended up being a really good thing, because schoolwork got CRAZY all of the sudden, and it lasted for weeks. I couldn’t have handled anything else in my life, it would have done me in. So God was taking care of me. But I’ve been out of that phase for a couple weeks now, and still nothing. And I was kind of like, “What gives, God?” I was praying the other night, asking Him what I could do. “God, what do you want me to do right now?” pretty much became my mantra. And God started highlighting to me how often I was using the world “do.” He said, “Try and stop. Just for a couple minutes.” And I couldn’t. Within seconds I was focused on it again. Because without something to do I feel useless. Ruh roh.

“Do” is a dirty word between me and God right now. God wants me to cultivate stillness, cultivate rest for the moment. Because I need to learn that “useless” is not and will never be part of who I am to God. I need to learn not to let pressure and guilt drive my life. I need to truly believe who my God is and how a relationship with Him is actually transformative before I will be able to live and share it. God has been speaking to me about intentionally choosing how I spend my time and being ok with the choice that I’ve made, not letting my confidence in that choice be undermined by anything or anyone. So much of the total anxiety in my life comes from worrying about how I’m spending my time. Worrying that I’m not spending it well enough or doing the right things. God doesn’t want that for me. Or for anyone.

Return to my plants. I was talking to a friend about my plants today and the correlation hit me so hard. All I have to do is not neglect them, and the growth happens. It’s actually been really beautiful during this time to watch the world continue to thrive and even to heal as humans have become hands-off. It’s only God. He keeps it going. He causes the growth. At most, we can tend. We can’t DO enough to keep the world going to make the disciples to keep the church healthy to bring justice to every cause. We just can’t DO everything. But God is really good at the doing. We just don’t neglect. We “plant and water,” as Paul says. God gives the increase.

There’s so much to say, about fruit of the spirit, about waiting on the Lord, about rest and relationship, but I’m going to leave it there for now. Mostly because it’s 1:30 am and my eyes, due to a combination of hay fever and too much screen time, are completely done. Sorry I’ve been absent for a time. At least I got a post in during May haha. I was overwhelmed for a long while. And then I was resting 🙂