Friday, September 9, 2011

Are you missing a message?

Isn't it funny sometimes how we can get in our own way, and completely miss a message the Father is trying to give us.

Recently, I revised my home management/homeschool schedule. On that schedule, I had this great plan that I was going to get up at 5:00 am, so I could run before my husband goes to work. I wanted to run along our pretty back roads, instead of around the perimeter of our property, which isn't much more exciting than running a track at the gym.

Do you see where this might be going?

All this week I've planned to get up at 5:00, all this week I've failed...until this morning. Last night I prayed God would get me up at 5:00 like I had planned so i could get my run in. I was actually super excited when I awoke to my alarm at 4:45 am (if you can believe that) because I had slept through it every other day this week. I took a few minutes to wake up, got up at 5:00 am, made a pot of coffee, and started getting dressed. I was SO excited to get back to running.

That is, I was excited until I walked out the door.

Somewhere, in all my excitement, this city-turned-country girl had forgotten that in the COUNTRY, at 5:00 am, you can't see your hand in front of your face. No, that's not figurative. You LITERALLY cannot see your hand in front of your face!

Not to be discouraged by the fact that I couldn't see where I was walking, and I had wasted a formidable amount of time trying to get my stop watch to work, I headed out, in the direction of the one streetlight within a mile or so radius. I decided I would nix my original plans, and just run around the adjacent block...surely that was still doable, and still so much better than looking like a fool running around my yard.

Nope. Wrong again.

I STILL couldn't see well, I came across some animal that I had to kick dirt at to scare away (I think it was a possum) and then once I rounded the next corner I saw a larger animal in the shadows. That was enough to make me high tail it home. I ran a WHOPPING .42 miles. Yikes. And I felt like I was going fast, but stopping for that animal must have killed my pace because my time was slow. I was too scared to run around the block again.

God did what I asked. He woke me up this morning, and got me out the door so that I could realize MY plan, was NOT His plan!

Hmmm...so, maybe I was sleeping through my alarm every morning when I never normally do that because God felt I needed more sleep. Gee, imagine that.

So now I will be re-working my schedule again, and praying about it first this time. I guess I also get to go back to looking like a fool and running around my property.

I'm ok with being a fool for Jesus though. Are you?