Emotional Waste

I have been blessed in my life, as I am sure that you have as well, with some people that have always served to sharpen the iron of my soul and place my feet to the fire when needed.  On one particular occasion I was speaking to one such friend who used the term "emotional waste."  I was intrigued.  My friend explained further by sharing that many times we spend a lot of time and energy investing our emotions into things that are not up to us to control.  We pour our hearts and souls into something or someone and when it doesn't turn out quite as well as we want or we end up being disillusioned, we truly think everything must end now because we have indeed invested so much of ourselves into it.

In the long run, the truth is as my good friend says "just let it be what it be!" No amount of anger, no amount of crying, no amount of being upset with the world will change what it is so stop wasting so much emotional energy.
Listen, we've all been there, particularly those of us who are church planters.  We may have the best visions, the best ideas, the best plans but in the long run it is what it will be and you have two choices.  You can decide to remain heated about it and with everyone and carry that to your next assignment or get rid of the waste and realize that you are called not to invest in your vision, but in God's Reign.  This isn't your ministry, it happens to belong to someone else and I think that its the same being who handled creation, so I think God's got this!  Perhaps this is why the Word says "weeping may endure for a night" because that's as far as God wants you to take it.  Don't let your emotional waste take over, but learn to enjoy the sunrise of a new day.
People will try to place value on you based on what you do and how successful you are at doing it.  Yet the one who made you knows how valuable you already are, so why would you invest your emotions anywhere else.
My prayer is that God will give me a discerning heart to know when I am teetering on investing my emotions into something that will become an exhausting enterprise and will just leave me emotionally spent.  To many of us walk around with bankrupt hearts and empty souls.  James 4:7 says, "resist the devil and he will flee from you" and I believe that brother James was also talking about the devil in you and me.  You know the one that believes that without you this work can't get done!  Yea you know you've seen that demon rear its ugly head from time to time.  Believe it or not people are much more perceptive than we give them credit and in fact the Church of Jesus Christ will go on et in saecula saeculorum!   I have come to realize this in my own setting.

So, every now and then its good to take out the trash, dust off the shelves and clear the air.  Remember, not to throw any of it in the recycle bin.  These things always find a way of creeping back in.

Happy cleaning,

Lydia