STOP SO I CAN CATCH UP

Ever heard those words, stop so I can catch up? Ever heard them being said to you by you? This past weekend my family engaged in fall cleaning of the house, mainly because my mother-in-law is coming next week and my wife wants the house cleaned. We made some good progress; the problem is life does not stop to wait for cleaning. There was still all the other stuff that needed to be done. Meals still needed cooking, shopping still needed done, homework still needed done etc… The result, nothing really got done. The house actually looked worse on Monday then it did on Saturday morning. The result frustration. The problem is Monday brought a whole new bunch of stuff that needed accomplished. There were meetings, notice the s as in plural, there were practices to attend, there was dinner that needed cooked, again etc… As a result, the house even looked worse on Tuesday. The result of that and too many meetings, even more frustration. The result of that, the inner cry of stop so I can catch up or let me off this merry-go-round. As Regis Philbin used to say, “I am only one man!” The next question, when does the sheer exhaustion end? Or how can I make it end, and are the consequences of doing that bearable? I know I am not the only one in this crazy world that feels that way. When you get to that point I think that there are only three options.
One, you can continue on the road that you are on and eventually you will either crash and burn or just walk out of the door of life and disappear someday. You know one day you are stressed to the max and the next day you wake up and you are in another country washing dishes and speaking Portuguese to a bunch of people that call you Padrozah, which means, “Strange guy that wandered into village one day looking lost.” Makes for a good book or a movie but not exactly a very good life.
Two, you can totally change directions and avoid it all, which is some cases can be good, but in most cases results in disaster, because you are just avoiding the problems that you need to be dealing with. The result even more stress as you look back and realize you really messed things up by running away from your problems and now you spend all your time dealing with guilt and regret and the situation you are in is even worse than the one you wanted out of. Makes for a good setting to learn more about yourself and God, but is horrible on the central nervous system and family relationships. Not a good option.
Three, you can deal with reality and realize that you can only do what you can do, and most importantly you can take it to God and leave it at the foot of the cross. It means dealing with the reality of the situation and realizing some things are not going to get perfectly done. If the house is not perfectly clean when my mother-in-law gets here, well so be it. At the end of the day, kids need to be fed, homework needs to be done and jobs need to be accomplished, the rest is gravy. It is the same with any situation, the important stuff needs accomplish and the less important stuff will be done if there is time and if there is energy. As they say no one says on their death bed, “I wished I had spent more time at work.” Or, “I wish I had run another program, or had a cleaner house.” People talk about their relationships with their family and the important things that they did in their life. So in other words the best way to deal with a crazy out of control life, is exactly that, deal with it. Don’t walk away, don’t avoid, face it and prioritize it and deal with it and hand the stress over to God, and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes you need to stop so you can catch up.

Pastor Fred