thought for the day: here I am Lord

It's not everyday that I wake up and ask myself, "what should I do today?". Unless I'm on vacation this just isn't a normality in my life. Annoying even to myself most of the time, I have every hour of every day planned a month in advance and at least a good rough draft of the next few months.

This past Monday I had the pleasant surprise of finding out rather late the week prior that I didn't work the following Monday. Normally I spend my days off, running errands, doing laundry, cleaning house and doing many other tasks I've assigned for myself. However this day was different, I didn't assign myself any tasks and tried to not clean the dog hair off the floor that just two days earlier was cleaned thoroughly.

Truth be told, I just didn't have any time to plan for the day. But, somehow I think that it was meant to be. I needed to relax and not have an agenda, for just a day. So instead, I slept in, had coffee and read my Bible with Ryan, fixed breakfast, watched a little TV, did three loads of laundry, went for a 5 mile run, showered, got ready, went grocery shopping, made cookies, made Ryan's lunch for the next day and played cards with my mom, cousin and two great aunts.

I tell you this to introduce you to my thought for the day that literally popped into my head somewhere between mile 2 and 3 of my run. I set it up in this way to give you a glimpse into how I normally operate; schedules, to-do-lists and the like.

Having a plan isn't necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it can be. It can be a bad thing when it gets in the way of listening to the Lord and allowing Him to plan your day, or your life. I think part of the reason I have been so frustrated lately with my life and all the things I have going on is because it's my plan, and may not be the Lord's plan for me.

So, like I said, during my run, I had this thought impressed on my mind. What if I woke up every morning and just said, "what would You like for me to do today Lord?" Immediately this thought gave me a strange peace. Could it be that in my "control" I'm actually out of control? Are my plans and busy schedules inferring with the plans my Master has for me? Is my mind so full of schedules and agendas such as asking my husband at midnight what kind of cheese he wants on his burger for dinner the next day, that I can't even hear the Lord's voice asking me to do something?

Right now I am reading through the Bible. We see the Lord calling Abraham in Genesis 22:1, "Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said "Hear I am." This occurred just before the Lord blessed Abraham and told him that he was going to greatly multiply his descendants.

In Exodus chapter 3 we see Moses also being called by the Lord. We know that it is a very important job that the Lord was going to give to Moses, to return to Egypt and free the Israelites. Moses was just tending the sheep when he was called by the Lord in verse 4 of chapter 3 we read, "When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said "Here I am."

I could be missing out on something the Lord wants me to do, someone He wants me to talk to, or something He wants me to say unless I really lay aside my own agenda and let Him have it. It could be that I still get up and go to work every morning and fix dinner every night and even clean house and go grocery shopping. That's all Moses was doing when he was called of the Lord. I want to be able to say that when the Lord called me, I heard Him and said, "Here I am Lord".