Right now, my house is a mess.

Legos have become my new flooring. Shrill cries from my 6-week old demand attention. The eldest, responsible for making breakfast, used too little flour in the scones. Not due to a lack of flour, but because he didn’t want to use bleached flour.  Now the morning meal is burnt and inedible. Racing through the house are other children, howling after the newly-fixed stray cat who was supposed to be contained in the guest room. Any instruction Mommy has given to make beds or brush teeth has evaporated from their minds. Quarrels and conflicts bubble up from the corners of the house. The day is escaping me.

Little whispers of doubt rise up and escalate: “What if your homeschooling isn’t good enough? If only you could spend money in joining x, y, and z – then the children could get interaction, education, and you could influence your community! With more stuff, then more people could know us and learn about our church. We could invest more in the church, and the church would grow. After all, all these other churches actually have programs and money to spend, and look how they are growing! Although they have super outgoing, super put together, super hip and with it pastors’ wives. These wives have great hair. I haven’t had a professional haircut in years. I don’t do enough. I am not friendly enough. I don’t rest in Christ enough. I can’t even be a good Christian. No one else thinks like this. Everything will fail.”

I. I. I.

There is so much of me in these thoughts. What is the remedy?

Him. Him. Him.

…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…

-Hebrews 12:2

“Be thou my vision…”

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus…”

Cling tighter to Christ. His Word is sure. He changes not; His compassions they fail not. He is not fickle. He does not lie. He is not dependent upon me. I can do all things through him who strengthens me – a passage talking about contentment, not self-esteem or fulfilling your dreams. He is able to, and He will complete this good work in you, conforming you to the image of the Son. Cling to Christ!

.Learn much of your own heart; and when you have learned all you can, remember you have seen but a few yards into a pit that is unfathomable. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can understand it?’ Jer. xvii. 9  Learn much of Christ. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief!

-Robert Murray M’Cheyne