I Have Too Many Tabs Opened

Have you ever looked at your computer's web browser and all of sudden felt overwhelmed because you have too many tabs opened at one time? Have you ever clicked through them furiously, feeling like you'll never get to the one you want?

That's how my brain and my heart feel right now.

I have too many tabs opened.

I have too many drafts saved of posts I just needed to think through that might not ever get published.

I have too much going on in my heart right now.

I have too many voices in my head trying to tell me the way to go.

Not too many tabs in a "life feels crazy because I have too many things going on" sort of way, it just feels...the way it looks when a little kid pounds on the keyboard trying to make up words, but it's actually just a bunch of scrambled letters. My life is trying to take those scrambled letters and turn them into audible and sensible words and phrases about how I'm doing. Somewhere in this mess there has been a disconnect though.

I've been struggling to find a way to articulate the way I've been feeling over the last little while. It's the type of feeling where all you can do is make some kind of motion with your hands but no words actually come out to describe it. But the only word I can ever think of to express the feeling is numb; an internal feeling of spiritual numbness. It seems like as soon as I moved everything in me about my spiritual life shut down. I've been trying to power through, but it just seems like I keep powering off instead. I thought I was over this. I thought I was over these terrible seasons of frustration with myself for not doing the "Christian thing", for not pursuing God in the ways I should be. I'm in ministry now for goodness sake, yet how do I lead (how am I even allowed to lead?) if I'm not taking care of myself?

As frustrated as I get with these seasons of my life, I love the beauty of God's faithfulness regardless of what it is I'm doing (or not doing I suppose?). There was a verse quoted from Isaiah 30 in a book I have been working through that caught my attention, but I wanted to get the full context of the verse to understand why it was being said (don't mind me; just putting my education to good use :) ). The people of Israel were doing what they did best being stubborn and putting their hope in things that were not God. God was offering himself to them over and over again, but they were choosing what was good in the moment and ignoring his plea for his people to return to him. 

The verse in chapter 30 that stuck out to me the most, and that I feel captured the beauty of God's heart for his people, was verse 18: "Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him." The Lord waits to be gracious to his people. 

What. The Actual. Heck. I took no time at all to scribble in the words "I don't deserve this" next to the passage because it's true. I don't deserve God's grace or compassion or mercy, and yet he chooses to give it to me anyway. Who does that?! Who in their right mind would choose to show any attribute of care to someone who clearly doesn't want it? I love that I will never be able to fully comprehend how God can do this. I love that I will never be able to understand how much God loves me and cares for me, and that he still hears me in my frustration when I cry out to him. I love that he understands this crazy mind and heart of mine that he created....

Even if I have too many tabs opened.