Today Kimberly Zweygardt talks about the balance between being God’s hands and feet and sitting at His feet. For me, this is a daily struggle and one I’ll likely never master. In my life, the answer comes from awareness and intentional living.
Learning to Be-Do by Kimberly Zweygardt
For many, the lazy, hazy crazy days of summer are over and life is back to schedules. School schedules and homework and sporting events and did someone just send me a message with a countdown clock to Christmas? Can it be?
I wanted a summer where I kicked back in the recliner while the ceiling fan rifled the pages of a really good book. Instead my hubby injured his shoulder at the beginning of May. Our summer consisted of doctor’s visits and him being busier than a one-armed paper hanger in a wall paper factory trying to get everything done before his surgery on August 15th. Not what I’d envisioned for the lazy days of summer.
And then there was the ever-changing Kansas weather. We had unprecedented rain causing a prolonged harvest and muggy temperatures clinging doggedly to the 100 degree mark for weeks. My dreams of frosty iced tea sipping and lazily flipping pages disappeared like the cool morning in the 100 degree heat as my hubby and I worked together to keep up with our very busy lives.
No time for reading a good book! And there are some great Christian fiction selections out there. So many books…..so little time for someone who loves to read, yet knows there are other more important things to do in life. It’s just all so serious, you know.
So how did you spend your summer? Are you someone who has a summer “to do” list of keeping up the house and summer projects or do you hit vacation mode as soon as the thermometer creeps up and you flip the calendar page to June?
I’m a little of both and this summer more than ever I struggled to find the balance between all I wanted to do and all I needed to do. As usual, I struggled with the “should’s”–all the things that a woman like me should do. I should schedule date nights with my husband. I should have a spotless house. I should set aside a time to connect with friends. I should lose 10 or 20 or 30 lbs and eat right and exercise every day. I should read my Bible at least 30 minutes a day and pray 30 minutes a day and ……you get the picture.
The common denominator in those things is they’re all about the doing and less about the being.
Have you asked yourself about that lately? What is it that Christ asks of us? Is it running around doing, doing, doing? Or is He calling us to come away to just be with Him?
Don’t get me wrong. I know we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We are to go and do likewise. So what was it that Jesus did?
He healed the sick. Gave to the poor. Touched the lepers. Hugged the children. Spent time with His Father so He knew what the Father would have Him do at every moment. And He rested. His life was filled with love and laughter. He didn’t strive. He lived in the moment. He loved the Father and He loved people. He calls us to do likewise.
Quite different from my “to do” list where it is all about a religious life check list instead of time with the Father. God may want me to do some of the things on my list, but I’ll never know that if I don’t spend time with Him.
In my quiet time, He brought me back to Matthew 6:25: “This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?”
I realized this summer that I spend a lot of time thinking about those things….”What should I fix for supper? What should we eat? Is it good for me? Is it fattening? Do these pants make me look fat?”
Wow. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Jesus goes on to say that idolaters seek those things even though the Father knows we need them. Instead He calls us to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness and then all these things will be provided for us.
It’s an upside down Kingdom. He wants us to be His followers. He wants us to be holy. He wants us to be in His Kingdom. But we don’t get that through the doing of good works. We get it through being adopted into the family of God through Jesus.
And then comes the doing. Out of the overflow of His love, we love others. Out of our gratitude for all He has done, we do for those He loves.
It is the perfect counterpoint for feeling like I didn’t get enough done during the not-so-lazy days of summer. So this fall, I’ve decided not to be a good Do-Be as Miss Fran asked us to be on Romper Room. Instead, I’m going to look for ways to love God and love people. I’ll be a Be-Do instead! Being His Beloved. Being His Child. And out of the overflow of that love where He first loved me, I’ll do some things that are good for me and my hubby and those He has given me to love in my world.
How about it? Want to Be-Do with me?
Blessings,
Kim
BIO: Kimberly Zweygardt is a Christ follower, wife, mother, writer, blogger, dramatist, worship leader, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, a fused glass artist and a taker of naps. She has been published in The Rocking Chair Reader anthology, the Chicken Soup for the Soul Healthy Living Series on Heart Disease, and Rural Roads magazine as well as numerous blogs and Web-zines. She is the author of Stories from the Well and Ashes to Beauty: The Real Cinderella Story. For more information: www.kimzweygardt.com
BIO: Kimberly Zweygardt is founder of Lamplight Ministries whose purpose is to “illuminate Scripture through drama.” She has performed her first person accounts of the women who met Jesus throughout the United States. Kim is the author of Stories from the Well: Splashes of Living Water in the Desert of Life and Ashes to Beauty: The Real Cinderella Story. She has been published in The Rocking Chair Reader anthology, the Chicken Soup for the Soul Healthy Living Series on Heart Disease, and Rural Roads magazine as well as numerous blogs and Web-zines. For more information: www.kimzweygardt.com
What about you? How do you find that balance between offering your body as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2) and abiding in Christ (John 15:4)?
