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December 9, 2014 joy•rest•trials

Keeping in step

I was out this past Saturday for my baby shower and my oldest daughter asked my husband what he planned to do that day. “I don’t have any plans really,” he said.
“Mommy always has a plan,” she replied.
She knows her mama well. I’m a task person. I make lists. I keep a detailed planner. I like thinking up projects around the house. Sometimes this is a benefit to my family, and sometimes it’s a strain.
But God is slowing me down these days. At 36 weeks pregnant, my ankles swell when I’m on my feet for long. I get tired by lunchtime. I have limited patience, limited energy. I know the challenges will only change with life with a newborn.
But I think this is a gift, these limitations.
You see, I think God is showing me that my busyness is often running ahead of the pace of the Holy Spirit. I can’t BE like Jesus because I’m so busy DOING things, trying to solve problems, thinking too much, attempting too much.
Galatians 5:25 says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” I have always pictured this verse as me running and scrambling to try to keep up with the swiftly moving Spirit. Have you? “Catch up slow poke! Get in the game!” And maybe this is the case at times. But what if keeping up with the Spirit can also mean slowing my steps to match His?

Joni Eareckson Tada, a woman intimately familiar with a forced slow-down (a quadriplegic since a teenager), says about this verse in a post here: 

“The meaning here is not about keeping pace, as if the Spirit were racing ahead and we’d better hurry up and keep up with him; rather, it has to do with measuring one’s moments in a circumspect way…. the implication here is lining ourselves up with the Spirit day by day, hour by hour. Keeping life on a short leash … step by step, Lamentations Chapter 3 says that God’s strength, his mercy is available one day at a time . . . . The environment in which to learn how to be content is a world of minutes and moments and very small steps.  As someone once said, “When life isn’t the way you like it, like it the way it is” – one day, one hour at a time… with Christ.  And you will be blessed.”

I’m reading Unbroken and in it, Louie Zamperini is stranded at sea for 47 days after his bomber crashes. He discovers that for the first time in life, he’s able to think and carry out thoughts for hours at a time. For the first time He is impressed with the knowledge of a Creator as he stares up at the stars from his life raft. He begins to see this terrible time as a strange gift. (I’m completely fascinated by this book, by the way).

I’m catching a small glimpse of this in the gift of my current limitations. And I suspect that God will be using various circumstances my whole life to “hem me in” (Psalm 139:5) in this way. Will I fight against this hemming or learn from it?

What limitations are slowing you down today so you can “keep in step with the Spirit”?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Katie says

    December 10, 2014 at 2:04 pm

    I really appreciate this commentary. Thanks.

  2. MarydeanDraws says

    December 11, 2014 at 3:35 am

    You're so welcome friend. Can we keep reminding each other of this?

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Welcome to the blog!

I’m Mary and I’m glad you’re here! Since 2014, I’ve been sharing encouraging words, fun Bible printables, and accessible art activities.

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If you look up artwork or movies featuring Mary Ma If you look up artwork or movies featuring Mary Magdalene, you’ll often find her depicted as a penitent woman or as sexualized, with her clothes literally falling off her body. It was Pope Gregory the Great who proposed that Mary Magdalene’s seven demons represented the seven deadly sins and that she was both a prostitute and the penitent sinner who anoints Jesus in Luke 7:36-50 (Jennifer Powell McNutt).

Later church historians assumed that Mary Magdalene’s great sins were to blame for her demon possession (McNutt). While the Western Church came to see Mary Magdalene as a prostitute and a great sinner, the Eastern Orthodox church honored her as the leader of the “myrrh-bearing women” (Taylor and Bond).

Read some research into the REAL Mary Magdalene story here:
https://marydeandraws.substack.com/p/jesus-speaks-to-women-chapter-16
In today's Friday newsletter: 🌸 Mother's Day Sa In today's Friday newsletter:
🌸 Mother's Day Sale! 20% off with the MOMLOVE on my website. Mother's day is Sunday, May 10 this year.
🌸 Part 1 of the Mary Magdalene study is up on Substack. Have you ever heard that she was a prostitute? Where did that come from? Is it Biblical? I was fascinated by how her story has been told through history, the origins of her name, what it means that she had been possessed by seven demons, and her place among Jesus’ disciples. 
🌸 The Holy Post podcast episode with Bri Stensrud, the director of Women of Welcome, “a community dedicated to diving into the whole of scripture to understand God’s heart for the immigrant and refugee.” 

Read the newsletter here:
https://marydeandraws.substack.com/p/marys-friday-newsletter-41726

Read the Mary Magdalene post here:
https://marydeandraws.substack.com/p/jesus-speaks-to-women-chapter-16

If you sign up for my newsletter, you can receive all my posts in your inbox. Sign up on my website at www.marydeandraws.com or find me on Substack. You don't need the Substack app to read my posts, but it's easy to use, and you can listen to any of the stories with the playback feature.
When I started writing the Jesus Speaks to Women B When I started writing the Jesus Speaks to Women Bible studies last year, I started collecting books on New Testament women. I really didn’t know where to start at first. I wasn’t familiar with the scholarship about women in the Bible, and I hadn’t even heard of any female theologians doing this work!

So you don’t have to start from scratch if you’re like I was, I’m going to share a list of books I’ve learned from in the last year. Some are more academic than others, but all have been helpful. 

See the list here or find me "Marydean Draws" on Substack:
https://marydeandraws.substack.com/p/books-about-women-in-the-new-testament
In today's Friday newsletter: 🌸 things I learne In today's Friday newsletter:
🌸 things I learned from my pastor dad (in honor of his birthday)
🌸 upcoming bird collage workshop at Friendly City Clay and Art Center
🌸 using oil pastels + a recommended set from Blick
🌸 book about women in the New Testament 
🌸 preparing to write about Mary Magdalene and the resurrection stories

Read it all here:
https://marydeandraws.substack.com/p/marys-friday-newsletter-41026

The post about books about New Testament women:
https://marydeandraws.substack.com/p/books-about-women-in-the-new-testament

If you sign up for my newsletter, you can receive all my posts in your inbox. Sign up on my website at www.marydeandraws.com or find me on Substack. You don't need the Substack app to read my posts, but it's easy to use, and you can listen to any of the stories with the playback feature.
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