Routine or Purpose

Papa is bringing things to my mind again.  I feel a stirring of winds in my soul...something is on the horizon, what I'm not exactly sure.  But I know this, things are unsettled inside me in such a way that it is causing me to look at life and consider.  What is it I really want?  How do I really want my life to be lived out?  What do I want for my kids?

I had a dream last night.  Papa often speaks to me through my dreams.  Sometimes they are a picture,with a meaning behind them.  Not all dreams are like that but I know when one has meaning because it doesn't leave me.  There is something about it that is just a bit too familiar.

As I woke from this dream and went to Papa with it I began to see things that have been lost in my day to day living, while living the routine.  This calling of parenting is a one that you live and learn along the way.  We don't get an instruction manual that gives us 100 steps to raising successful children.  We live and learn, often by mistakes made.

I am seeing some mistakes made.  In my dream I was in an auto shop place waiting on my husband to call.  My kids were there with me, as well as some other kids.  I walked out the door and noticed a fire across the highway.  It ignited and in seconds was sweeping throughout the land.  It was a consuming fire, that in seconds ignited everything around it.  Was it coming towards us?  I told the children to stay put while I went to check it out.  On my way back to my children I got lost and couldn't find my way. The more I tried to find my way the more I was turned around and confused.  Frantic I was going from place to place asking directions to get back to my kids.  Finally I came upon one place that knew where I had left them and the woman gave me directions.  Then, I woke up from my dream.

With journal in hand I went to sit with Jesus.  I woke up with this feeling of abandoning my children, leaving them alone, and I realized that somewhere it was a reality, not physically, but emotionally.  For years my children needed me.  Every hour of the day from wake-up to bedtime was their's, except for naptime.  I was always on call.  Life demanded much with 5 kids in 10 years.  Would I ever get to the place where they didn't need me?  And then they started growing up and not needing so much.

Fast forward 10 years and you find me where I am today.  My oldest is 21 and overseas.  My youngest turns 11 this year.  Somewhere in the process of them moving into more independence

I have lost my way, not abandoning them physically but somewhat emotionally.  I haven't checked out, just gotten distracted in my own world.

As Papa has been pruning and restructuring me and my home I see that somewhere I got lost and distracted.  Life is so full of routines that I can find myself in robot mode, just going through the motions of the day.  In allowing my children to not need me I moved too far off the course.

It's never too late to go back.  A wrong turn is only a wrong turn when we don't go back and make the right turn.  So this dream has taken me back.   I want to be there present, involved and interested in the things that interest my children.  How easily the distractions have come.  How easy it is to get caught up in the things of this world that call out to me.

Today I heard Jesus ask me  if I was living in routine or with purpose.  I knew the answer.  Routine.  It's what life dishes out.  He told me something I'd never heard before.  "Routine is the "world's way", "Purpose is the Spirit's way".  The world lives in routine, while the Spirit lives in purpose. I asked Him how to find the way to living in purpose and He told me,  "It's quite simple." "Just do like I did." "Ask Papa each day what He has for you and go do that."

 As the woman knew the directions to get me back to where my children were in my dream, Papa knows the way to get me back in my reality.  My heart cries out to Him, take me back to that place, Papa. Turn my gaze into living a life of purpose, not routine.

I want to borrow a quote from Lori's blog, which is really a quote from Max Lucado's book, "Just Like Jesus".  "Thank you for the night's rest.  I belong to you today."

It really is as simple, as Jesus told me.  Waking up each day with the thoughts of belonging to Him, asking Him what He has for my day isn't difficult.  It's just making the choice and choosing the focus, fighting the distractions, that can be difficult.  

So what about you.  Jesus is asking.  "Are you living in routine or purpose?"

"Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is."  Ephesians 5:15-17

Jewelz

©copyrighted 2008 by Julie L. Todd