The last 15 years or so, the Lord has been teaching me to rest in him and rely on his grace and strength for everything I do. I have come a long way but I still find myself getting stressed and overwhelmed instead of enjoying life and walking in joy. There are the bills, the laundry, the daily meals that need to be prepared, and everything that goes into being a wife and the mother of 5 children. I have prayed about this and have concluded that I must be doing something wrong if I still get overwhelmed and burdened down. Jesus' prayer to his Father came to me one day when I was praying about it:
John 17:10-12 - All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.
I believe this scripture holds the key. Before the sin of Adam, our mind, body and spirit acted as one. We were fully integrated and there wasn't a conflict between what our will wanted to do and what we actually did. It was a lot easier to worship God through everything we did. Now, after the Fall, it is harder. Paul says in Romans 7:15 - "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." The good news however is that Jesus paid the price through his death on the cross, not just so we can go to heaven someday but so we can be fully integrated and transformed into Christ's image. So that we can have life to the fullest! In John 17, Jesus says that he will remain no longer in the world. It was important that he go to the Father so that the Holy Spirit could be released to all believers, not just so we can have a warm fuzzy, spiritual experience, but so we can have the power to be transformed. He desires us to be one as he and the Father are one. He desires us to be set apart and holy.
Still it doesn't come naturally. We need to discipline ourselves and be willing to take up our cross. One thing that is helping me to be mindful of Christ all day long and worship him in everything I do is committing to morning and evening prayer (Liturgy of the Hours) and repeating something like the "Jesus Prayer" all day long. These things are proving to be transformative and helping to line up my mind, body and spirit in accordance with God's will. I still have a ways to go but I look forward to the day when I radiate joy because I am able to see Christ in every detail of my life!
