Minding My Own Business

In my last post, I mentioned there are no short-cuts with God, yet I'd forgotten that there kinda-sorta is one after all.

Years ago I found this short-cut which led out of The Forest of Complication and into The Land of Peace. The sign post at the short-cut's beginning reads, "Minding My Own Business."

Along the MMOB Path, the sun came out from behind the grey fog I'd grown used to and Happiness was the order of the day. Why? Because as I walked this path I learned that Grace only strolls beside me when I'm minding my own business. She would disappear when I'd begin worrying and meditating about:

...the things other people were buying...
...what other people were saying...
...what other people were thinking...
...the Life choices other people were making...


There's no greater struggle than trying to do something about which you were meant to do nothing.

For years I tried to spare everyone from making mistakes. I'd try to figure out the answers to their problems--or what I perceived as problems--for them. And those problems weighed heavy on my mind because, again, Grace vaporized each time I chose to do that which God had not asked me to do. He had never asked me to live other peoples' lives. Only mine.

And half the time I was messing-up my own life.

I had taken 'bear one another's burdens' to the extreme. Other peoples' 'burdens' were even heavier burdens upon me because God had not equipped me to carry that which was none of my business.

Some things are my business. Some things I am meant to help take care of. Some matters are ones God wants to use me to speak through.

But some are not. And those are the ones God wants me to leave alone and just let Him take care of.

Sometimes I'm simply called to pray and then move along farther down the path, trusting that God can indeed, speak to other people, too, and show them answers--answers which often, are not what I'd have advised them to do, but work out well for them anyway (imagine that!).

I learned that God would let me know when He wanted to speak through me--and Grace would bear me up at those times. Otherwise, He wanted me to keep my mouth shut and trust Him to use His other servants to meet a need or use this time to teach strict reliance upon Him.

I learned sometimes my nosiness can frustrate the will of God.

And I learned the world really does keep revolving without me trying to spin it around myself.

And now there is joy because God sends me Grace each time to help me mind my own business. And oh the happiness now without the weight of the world upon my shoulders!

***

"...make it your ambition and definitely endeavor to live quietly and peacefully, to mind your own affairs..." ... I Thessalonians 4:11