I admit I can tend to over-think things. Knowing this tendency is unwise is barely a deterrent--but I think I might be locked up somewhere if I didn't have some small ability to reign in my tangled musings. While I have made great progress over time, it is still a part of my nature to try to sort things out, to understand, to figure out my own motivations, to know my own heart....
I Corinthians 1:25
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
It used to be consuming to fret over my own motives and responsibility. In broad daylight, I could seek perspective from a spiritual friend. But in the dead of the night, I could become the helpless victim of my own head: Why did I do this or that? What am I responsible for in this situation? Are my motives pure? Could I have said that better?
Somehow, it is in the middle of the night that I am most vulnerable to insanity. I can pray then, but groggy prayer has seldom been effective for me. I know that rumination accomplishes nothing, but even that knowledge used to seem like a foggy, illusive truth. These midnight recriminations accomplished nothing but sleep-deprivation and self-doubt. They never led me to spiritual insight and clarity.
I finally realized that these thoughts had me focused on the wrong person. I'll always be discouraged if I'm focusing on me. It is only God who can make something meaningful and useful out of my inadequacies. I sleep a lot better these days because I'm more able to be excited that God can use anything--even my mistakes and my sub-par motives to accomplish something good.
I Corinthians 12:2
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus....
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