Overcharged and Owned

Hi My name is Rachel and I've been owned by God.....again.

I've never really considered myself a perfectionist (okay maybe sometimes).
Or a person who gets stressed out a lot.
Or someone who takes on too many hats at one time.

I've always felt like I know when to be still.
Known when to chill out, and calm down.
And if you know me, you know that I'm one of the least neurotic/panicky people.

When it comes to life, I tend to cruise on by.

But today God owned me, through my circumstances and the advice of my mom. This week is supposed to be a break from work, and yet I've been finding myself with a busier schedule than the entire semester. I thought I could handle it, because it didn't seem like a lot of work, most of it I wanted to do, and therefore my work load wouldn't be that heavy (or so I thought.)

But today, amidst the busiest day of the week, everything came to a halt...I lost my keys. Actually I retract that statement because I know where they are, they're just unattainable at this time. And because I couldn't find my keys, I was forced to not do some of things I was supposed to do. Instead I found myself waiting for over an hour, sitting in the hallway, in front of my door, eating honey nut cheerios with one of my best friends. It was the most rest I'd had all week.

It's funny that just the other day I was talking to my friend about the Sabbath, and how it's a commandment we so often forget or dismiss. And yet God made it the 4th commandment, above honoring your parents, or not murdering or lying. So it obviously must be important.

But in a world that tells us "time is money" we forget to rest. We forget to recharge our own batteries, although that never seems to happen with our Ipods or Blackberries. We often go without thinking too much about it, running from meeting to class, from lunch to coffee, from e-mail to phone call.

And we simply forget to be still.

God knows that too often we do this to ourselves. He knows how easy it is to get burnt out, frustrated, or stressed out. He didn't make our bodies to be machines that run on little sleep and caffeine pills. Instead he made our bodies need 8 hours of sleep, need to sit down once in a while, and need to just breathe.

And when we're too busy trying to get everything done, sometimes he pulls the switch just to make sure that we're taken care of. He pulls the plug right before we have the chance to explode, and lets the computer cool down, so it doesn't get overworked.

And sometimes he just hides the keys.

Dreams or Destiny

It's hard to figure out whether your dreams are your destiny. Or if your heart longs for things because of the right reasons. Or if your heart is aligned with God's heart, or if God's telling you yes, though you think its a no, or vice versa.

It's never an easy task to move on from a comfortable state of living. Whether a new school, a new relationship, a new job or even a new type of food, it seems that there are always too many questions and too little answers.

Too often I find myself living in a fluffy cloud of my dreams, swirling in my own head dreaming of 'what I could do', 'what I want to do', 'what I should do', and 'what I will do.' It's a progression from my imagination to reality, often influenced by my peers and family. What I 'could' and 'want' to do are encouraged by my friends, but my family tells me what I 'should' and 'will' do, because inevitably I take the road well traveled, the most secure, all the while hoping that some drastic event will happen that will change the course I'm set on.

The question is whether imagination or reality is really God's plan.

This past Sunday Pastor Jim (I love the fact that he calls the congregation "beloved") talked about Paul and how God changed his trip to Rome, to a trip to an island called Malta. There was no forewarning, no direct signs of where God wanted Paul, except for a massive storm that blew them off course, or rather on course with God. After being shipwrecked on an island God uses Paul to preach the Gospel, heal the villagers, bond convicts and Roman guards, and fulfill a purpose he never was aware of. And then God evens sends them on their merry way with all the supplies necessarily to make it to Rome.

I'd like to know if my reality is in Rome, or my dreams are in Malta, but the truth is it could be both. Or it could be neither. And even though there are no clear signs, it doesn't mean that the path is not set out before me. It is, I just can't tell at the moment.

For Paul it wasn't about knowing, it was simply about floating. Floating to whatever remote island God took him to. But when he got there he took every opportunity, wasted nothing, and loved on everything.

Perhaps its not dreams or destiny, but simply living. And living actively and purposefully in every situation.