Random Monday Musings

Happy Monday everyone!  Today is my Sunday, so I cannot look at this day with quite as much disdain as everyone starting their work week today.  This blog post is months behind the last, and many of you probably do not even remember what was last blogged about (that's okay, neither do I!)

As we start out our weeks, I have a question for you:

Do you ever get overwhelmed?  I don't define overwhelmed as, "My week is busier that I thought it would be and I'm not going to get everything done", but instead as looking at a monumental task in front of you and knowing you cannot do it.  You cannot even figure out where to start, let alone begin the task.  That is kind of how I feel with a variety of things in my life.  I don't have the skills and abilities to accomplish what I need to, but when it comes to moving a mountain (not literally, but it is a lot of dirt and far beyond my capabilities to move) in my backyard, I kind of want to cry.  It has started with the annual snow melting and subsequent flooding in my house...yes, you read that correctly, I have had flooding in my house!  If I hope to prevent this in the future, it will take a lot of landscaping outside.  So I look at this task as monumental.  I don't have the equipment, money, knowledge, or ability to do the the yardwork and earth-moving, so to me it is a literal mountain.

Most of us have a "mountain" that we cannot see past.  What is the mountain in your life?  It could be a health issue or a relationship gone sour.  It could be something big, or like most things in my life, it may not be big at all.  But to you it is big.  And it seems impossible to move past.

That is what my backyard has come to be to me.  A mound of dirt that will take a thousand hours to dig on my own...okay maybe I'm being melodramatic...

[Update]: the summer is over, and now it's September 2018

Now the summer is over, and my yard is still in the same shape it was back in April.  Thankfully, though, there has not been too much rain!  And my perspective over the summer has changed.  I was studying Genesis 6-8 back in April, and the worldwide flood was something that oddly comforted me.  I say oddly, because the flood was an example of God's judgment on mankind for their immense wickedness (Genesis 6:5-7).  And I am definitely glad that the rain didn't fall on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12, 17-20) over this past summer, because my entire house would have been covered in water, let alone my basement!  But amongst all the terror of the storm, the death and destruction of living creatures, and the loss of beauty on the earth, is a God who judges sin and prevails over the earth.

When I read Genesis 6-8, I see my powerful God.  I see my God who is bigger than the biggest waves and the tallest mountains.  And I see my God who isn't phased by the little hill in my back yard that slopes toward my basement window.

It's amazing what a study of God's Word can do for my soul!  Fears and worries melt away in light of the greatness of God!  I hope that this can be an encouragement for you.  Surrender that fear and worry to the Lord, because worrying has never benefited any of us (Matthew 6:27), and in fact, it is a sin (Matthew 6:31).

This is what God tells us to do, and what I am going to do when I feel overwhelmed and concerned that there may still be flooding in the future...or when any other situation arises and threatens to drown my faith: [S]eek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33)!  God will take care of us <3