Intertwined

Something that the Lord keeps showing me over and over is how it is important to not be so intertwined with the things going on in my life. For example, I find I can be very passionate about MY ministry, MY reputation, MY breakthroughs and so on and so forth. And I get off track because I become so intertwined with my own little world - even when the things that I want to see succeed are things that are good - that I can miss out. In those situations, I'm spending life with the Lord to see my own little world succeed instead of taking my eyes off of myself, seeing things from His perspective and ministering to others out of His heart. When the latter occurs, He generally takes care of the MY's because God wants to promote those that are doing His will. When the former occurs, I can get very frustrated, because I made His work in or through me all about me and wonder why He isn't blessing it. If it stays His work, He loves to bless it and it glorifies Him. If it is my work, there is probably a high likelihood that I can expect to remain frustrated because I have made His work all about me - and that can sometimes be the way He wants to grow me more than having external success. There seems to be this place of surrender of what is occurring into His hands rather than burning ourselves out trying to make things happen (or quitting and being depressed). Then we find ministry occurs out of a grace of peace and trust because we know that we are really powerless anyways to change anything. It is amazing what can happen when we know that all of the results don't have anything to do with us, but have everything to do with who our God is!