Not long ago, Staples ran a series of television ads with an Easy button.  With one click, impossible office tasks became possible, even a breeze.  Nothing was beyond the power of the Easy button.

Today, I’d like to have one of those snazzy red buttons that makes life simple and stress-free.  Perhaps, though, what I really need is a Start This Day Over button or a Crawl Back Into Bed and Reawaken Feeling Great button. Maybe a Clear Foggy Brain button would help me or a Keep House Clean While Children Play At The Same Time button.  The most effective one, though, would be a Noise Cancelling/Make Everything Quiet So I Can Think For Two Seconds button.

I’ve tried all the buttons on the five remote controllers for my television, all to no avail.

So, here I sit typing away and feeling oh so inadequate to be sharing anything with you at all.  Normally, by this time in the day, I’d have written this post already and moved on to some other writing projects in between activities with my kids or washing dishes or laundry or other tasks.  This morning, though, as I tried to eke out time for writing, I found that I was running through all three daughters’ names plus the names of my two cats before I finally matched the right name with the child in front of me.  That didn’t bode well for finding the right words to share with you.

I’ve prayed all day for God to “help me out here!”  I pulled up to my prayer times and asked for some energy, clear-headedness, patience, well-behaved children, and a mess-free house with a side order of divine inspiration.  Do I want to Up-Size that?  Yes, please!

I’m still waiting on that order.

A sucker for advertising, I have also eaten several KitKats hoping that it would “Gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off a piece of that KitKat bar.”  The mini KitKat bars that fit into plastic Easter eggs, though, don’t really give a break so much as an extended blink.

In the middle of:

running unexpected errands
calming an overly tired baby who didn’t sleep last night and awoke screaming early this morning
scrubbing cat vomit out of the carpet from every single room in the house
organizing upcoming events and starting blankly at my to-do list and calendar wondering how realistic cloning myself by next month would be
asking my children in “Mommy’s nice voice” to play quietly and then watching them sprint across the house screaming at the tops of their lungs less than two minutes later . . . over and over and over again
and hearing an old Motown song rumbling around in my head in mockery: “Momma said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this, my Momma said”

—-somewhere in the midst of that, God’s been speaking truth to me. 

Lesson 1: My Feelings Can’t Be the Boss of Me

I’m not really feeling “it” today and by “it,” I mean anything.  Today, is a runaway kind of day, a quit all activities and retreat to a cabin in the woods kind of day, a shirk overwhelming responsibilities and live a life of selfish indulgence kind of day.  Yet, while feelings can be an indicator, they can’t be our basis of truth, our filter for reality, or the impetus for our actions.

Standing on the shores of the Jordan River, Joshua instructed the people to ^“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5).  Even with God’s promises ringing in their ears, overwhelming physical evidence of impossible circumstances must have been daunting, even paralyzing.  A nation of people stood on one side of the Jordan River, the Promised Land on the other.

Then, God asked them to literally step out in faith.  “It shall come about when the soles of the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan will be cut off, and the waters which are flowing down from above will stand in one heap” (Joshua 3:12-13).

The priests had to actively step into the river before anything could happen.  They could stand as long as they wanted on the banks of the Jordan, waiting for God to make a way through that water before they dipped their toes.  Yet, He’d given them a way.  He’d asked them to walk into it.  He asked them to act now even though they likely felt fear or doubt rather than confidence or excited anticipation.

As the toes of the priests sunk into the mud, the river water parted, just as God had promised.

Standing on the banks of my own Jordan, I can allow fear or doubts to paralyze me.  I can give up and walk away because the river is too wide and deep to cross.  Or, I can step where God has told me to walk regardless of my feelings and allow Him to part the waves of my circumstances with the power of His Presence.

*******************************************************************************************************

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King