Guest Post: To Many To-Do's of My Own

The following is a guest post from Amber over at Beauty in the Broken:

To Many To-Do's of My Own

I tend to be the kind of person who always has tons of ideas rolling through my mind. I am also the kind of person who writes down those thoughts (like, try all of them) =D Things like ideas I have, things I want to learn, things I need to do/want to do, ect.... I am always afraid that I will forget all the things I am thinking, so I guess writing them down helps. So at the end of the day I sit at a desk covered in sheets of paper/notebooks that I have filled with all the stuff I have written throughout the day. The problem with that is that I also have the tenancy to get to ambitious and write down WAY to many things that I want to get done that day... so I sit down, and read all the things that I DIDN'T end up doing that day and disappoint myself. Now I realize that no human being could get done HALF of the stuff I write down in one day, but it still would feel better if I at least knew that I could.


So last night, (while reading all the things I didn't do) I began to think of how I do the same thing in my relationship with God. I get over-ambitious and write I mental list of all the things I "have" to do to...often things that are not humanly possible. And what happens at the end of the day when I sit down and look back on my mental list? I fall short. Again & again....

So what should I do? Stop thinking of ways to please God? Not write "to do lists" anymore? I don't know that is the answer I need (though it may help) So after much thinking, I decided that the smart thing to do would probably look in the handy-dandy book (you know, the one that had been sitting open in front of me the whole time) with all the answers. And what did I find?

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." (Proverbs 16:3)

Surprisingly, not something totally new.

I have grown up in a christian home all my life. I have heard "Jesus loves you" more times than I can count and don't ever remember a time when we didn't go to church. Don't get me wrong, those are all GREAT blessings from the Lord that I am thankful for. But since I have never NOT been surrounded by the truth of God, I hear them over and over. You would think that they would be sinking into my head better and better and that I would be putting them int practice more and more, but no. I let the exact opposite happen.... I stop thinking about them as a new truth and they become "normal", just another sentence spoken form the mouth of God. No big deal, right? But then after a while of these things just being spoken as empty words on a page, are given BACK there true meaning again. He brings them BACK to life for me (he is known for that huh?). He says "hey, Amber... I think you kinda forgot what that REALLY means, so why don't I remind you?" Often times I am reminded the hard way (haha) but the reminder is needed. All of the things I have learned about that specific truth come flooding back. That is what hapened when I read this.

ALL of my plans need to be coming from God. How else can they be his will? I am pretty sure that if I thought up my own plans for my life and said "God, now lets see if they line up!" mine would be QUITE off. But if I let HIM make the plans, let HIM make the to-do-list, then they will ALL succeed. Every last one of them.

So I think that instead of making my OWN to do lists and disappointing myself, I am going to let HIM make the list and do the thinking. =)