Let Go of the “Do not Blink” Burden – Effectively-Watered Girls
For so long as I can bear in mind, I’ve struggled with the burden of eager for the subsequent season—eyes set on the subsequent shiny milestone—whereas being informed to not miss a single second of the one I’m in.
As a sixteen-year-old woman, I romanticized the thought of going off to varsity and dwelling out my grown-up desires. However they informed me, “Don’t blink! You’ll be away out of your family and friends and accountable for your individual laundry earlier than you realize it.”
As soon as I used to be in school, I noticed some fact of their phrases. However since I couldn’t return, I appeared forward to the proper job and a potential husband that will certainly come alongside by the point I graduated. (Spoiler alert: they didn’t.) Now it was, “Don’t blink! You’ll be in the true world earlier than you realize it. Get pleasure from nowadays when you haven’t any one to fret about however your self.”
As I continued by the seasons of life that adopted—first job, singleness, profession life, relationship, engagement, marriage, the next phases of motherhood—I heard it numerous instances. Don’t blink! I discovered myself riddled with nervousness about not savoring each particular (and generally horrible) second of my present season.
We normally obtain this well-intentioned recommendation whereas wrestling to reside lives marked by contentment and hope. The guts behind the encouragement is commonly pure, however this fixed don’t blink! recommendation can create strain that turns into a burden.
A Lighter Burden
God affords a greater means. We weren’t meant to reside underneath the load of appreciating each second of our lives. We’re restricted people, dwelling underneath the burden of house and time and finite and frail minds and our bodies. Solely God is limitless.
Psalm 90 is a prayer most commentators consider was written by Moses. This nice chief of Israel endured a lifetime of trials and struggling as he struggled to indicate God’s individuals the way to observe him, all whereas combating the temptation to doubt God’s provision himself. In a tune praising Yahweh’s everlasting nature, starkly contrasted in opposition to the finite nature of humankind, Moses prays, “So train us to quantity our days that we could get a coronary heart of knowledge” (Ps. 90:12).
Compared to a God who all the time has been and all the time can be, our lives are extremely quick. So now we have a option to both frantically try to reside the lives we’ve all the time dreamed of (or the world has dreamed up for us) or to reside with intentionality and objective, figuring out all circumstances and seasons have everlasting significance. We will attempt to management our days or reside as if they’re numbered, as a result of they’re.
Hearts of Knowledge and Lives of Intention
When Moses prays this prayer, he acknowledges that numbering our days isn’t our pure inclination. We have to be taught. Numbering our days resides as if they matter whereas recognizing that we don’t have management over them. Numbering our days produces a coronary heart of knowledge, which yields a life marked by peace, gentleness, cause, mercy, and good fruits (James 3:17).
Once we quantity our days, our goal shifts from not lacking a second of the season we’re in to being awake to the work God has given us to do. As Jesus taught in Luke 12:37, “these servants whom the grasp finds awake when he comes” are blessed. Dwelling in anticipation of Christ’s return helps us reside with the attention that our days on earth are numbered—and our days in eternity should not.
A Burden Launched, A Perception Reignited
Numbering our days offers us endurance in seasons of loneliness, longing, questioning, or struggling as a result of we do not forget that now we have a greater future awaiting us. We will reside by a season that appears nothing like we thought it could and nonetheless have peace as a result of we all know that God is utilizing our struggling to provide endurance, which produces character, which produces hope in Christ Jesus (Rom. 5:3–5).
We are going to see the worth of even the tough and painful seasons as a result of God makes us extra like him by the testing of our religion. It’s these moments that drive our eyes upward, placing our religion in our Savior as a substitute of ourselves or the world. Because of this, we grow to be extra steadfast in our religion, leaving us missing in nothing (James 1:2–4).
When that is our posture, it’s now not a burden to marvel precisely what our days could deliver, for now we have numbered them and located everlasting significance in no matter we face. We start to extra totally consider that for many who love God, all issues work collectively for good (Rom. 8:28).
Then, to listen to these acquainted phrases—don’t blink!—calls a unique response in us, one that’s assured our eyes are huge open to what God is doing in us and thru us in no matter season we’re in. And once we’re awake to that, we’re capable of reside surrendered to the God who by no means blinks, the one One who’s from eternal to eternal (Ps. 90:2).
