"Hard to plan the day"

A million and ten things to do, and I am uncharacteristically having difficulty focusing. I have the urge to create, to invest in a message that will embrace my varied audience. Yes, the audience that I am ignoring as individuals in favor of blog-therapy. Attempting to make my thoughts concrete is like trying to capture a sunset with crayons and a paper towel. Here are my scribblings:

The notion that I am able to be everything to everyone through even responding (much less saying the right thing at the right time) is ludicrous. Yet, I still try. I still create my to-do lists, sometimes because I enjoy them and sometimes as mild forms of reproach. ("Pink" letters, perhaps?) Today I was ruminating again on how Jesus spent the first thirty years of his life in ... what? Carpentry for a time. Jewish community, yes. During his ministry, Jesus certainly spent great amounts of time in "crisis relief work." Yet, He certainly had a ministry of friendship. He lived in community. He enjoyed spending time with His friends and foremost His Father.

Maybe I'm supposed to be using this time of unemployment to learn how to spend time with God first instead of with people. Even with few obligations, my time floats away so easily. I find myself wanting fulfillment through a career in crisis relief work. This is not inherently a wrong desire. However, when it distracts me from being content in this present season, it is a devious idol. The point is that if Jesus did not spend every waking moment in crisis relief work, than I doubt that is the call God has for my life. It's certainly not what I want, but I find myself feeling an uneasy guilt that I'm not attempting to save the world 24/7.

It occurred to me as I lugged one of the last boxes from the garage to my room to unpack that it is pride to think that God needs me to be working every second in order to bring salvation to the world. We fail to give God credit. Foolishly, we doubt that He is able to single-handedly able to rescue mankind. In a broken world, He commands us to extend His love and treat the "least of these" as we would treat Him. He clearly tells us to care for orphans and widows in their troubles. He commands us to remember those in chains as if chained with them. However, He does not need us. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we are clearly supposed to help people, but only in the context of following Christ. We should go only where He is leading. I stumbled across this quote earlier today:

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E. B. White

White sounds like an ENFJ. :)I need to be done planning and cogitating for now. Let go; let God. Amen.