Get Out of the Traffic!

Yesterday was kind of a different day for us.  One of the things that I have learned over the last few years as a 24/7 caregiver for my wife, is the importance of staying somewhat close to a daily schedule as well as picking up after myself!  Not only is a regular schedule important for my wife in her current condition, but it also helps to keep me on track and focused.  The picking up after myself keeps me on top of all the daily chores I have to accomplish without adding additional clean up from the previous day’s messes.

Because of one of the healthcare programs that my wife is on, we became eligible for PG&E’s Energy Savings Assistance Program.  There are many parts to the program, one being a house weatherization inspection.  We had scheduled ours for yesterday afternoon and for some unknown reason, I had figured that they would be in the house for about one hour.  Well, guess what?  I was wrong!  It ended up taking about two and a half hours as they installed seals in all the electrical outlets, replaced four outdated light fixtures and the two showerheads, placed new weather stripping around the front door, tested our appliances, and put in some additional vents in the closets where the water and house heaters are located.  Along with all of this, we are also getting a brand new refrigerator!  So the extra time was well worth the effort!

The down side was that it completely shot a hole in my afternoon schedule and our planned grocery shopping trip!  When the two workers left, I looked at my wife with sort of a glazed look and said, “Let’s go for a walk!”  I needed to get my focus back and couldn’t think of a better way for me than to get outside and walk in the fresh air!  As we were walking around our neighborhood lake my head felt like I had a zillion conflicting thoughts going through it.  As we began our second loop around the southern end of the lake next to the family swimming pool at the recreation center, I heard the Lord reminding me: “Be still in the Lord…”  Then it hit me!  I needed to “still” the boomeranging thoughts in my head and replace them with the picture of what God’s Word says!

Just before I turned out the lights last night, I read in the daily devotional “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young, something that clarified my revelation at the lake.  It stated, “Anxiety is a result of envisioning the future without Me… include Me in any imagery that comes to mind.”  After my experience at the lake, I would also include the envisioning of our present circumstances as well as our future to that statement!

This morning I felt led to look at Psalm 46:10 in my Message Bible and had to laugh at the accuracy of their paraphrase in the light of my experience yesterday.  It encourages us to “Step out of the traffic!  Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.”  That picture really hit home as it reminded me of the first time I drove on a Los Angeles, California freeway at rush hour!  It was back in the early eighties when my young family and I were on the final leg of a trip to Disneyland.

I had never experienced anything like it before.  There was literally bumper-to-bumper traffic, but everyone was driving over the posted speed limit!  I recall keeping a close eye on the car that I was following and on my speedometer at the same time.  I was attempting to keep to the speed limit, but the guy behind me kept honking his horn when I fell behind the flow of the traffic!  During all of this, it seemed like the cars around me were changing lanes without any thought of distances between vehicles and without bothering to look as they switched lanes!  It was a crazy and unsettling scene for a country driver like me!

It was the perfect picture of the scene that was happening in my mind while walking around the lake.  I was so focused on what was happening around my life at that moment, that I forgot to consider what God’s truth says about the situation!  When I switched the channel in my thoughts to God, I felt an immediate peace as His expectations tossed my negative anxieties aside.  I suddenly had a hope for His best and the confusion disappeared.

So, in summing up some of my thoughts from Psalm 46:10 this week, I would say that while it is important for us to steal away from our busy schedules to be alone with God, to still ourselves and listen quietly to His voice, it is just as important to still the raging thoughts that pop up in our heads throughout the day and replace them with our personal experiential “knowing” of His love and His ways for our lives at that moment in time.  It is those personal experiences that can make the difference when all else is spinning out of control around us.

I would encourage you to spend a little time this weekend in remembrance of those personal moments of experience that you have had with Him in the past and then make for new times to experience additional personal and intimate touches of His love toward you.  Have a great and prosperous weekend!  Stay in tune to His Word, and keep asking yourself… “What personal experiences with God am I expecting today?”