Why are Mondays always so manic? Or is it the song that makes me think they are? Today I’m going crazy with schooling my children..well  not at the moment. One is practicing the piano while the other one is undoubtedly playing with Barbies or maybe she could might probably be coloring…oh wait. Here she comes now to practice the piano.

My day started at the unheard of hour of 6:15 am. I am pretty much convinced we are meant to sleep in during the winter. It is so hard for me to get up while it is still dark.  So I didn’t get up at 6:15 but I did wake up.

Then it was time to hit the deck running. Shower. Make breakfast. Ignore the child who apparently hates oatmeal. Clean up breakfast. Get child to school. Talk to principal. Talk to school secretary. Drive home. Laundry. Oversee piano practice. Oversee school work. More laundry. More school.

And it’s not even 9am yet.

This morning I was reading in Joshua chapter one. Moses has died and God is giving Joshua his marching orders. Reminding him that He will be with Joshua just like He was with Moses.  Joshua then in turn tells the men of Israel again what they are to do to take over the land.

The men of Israel respond with, ” All you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you; only may the LORD your God be with you as He was with Moses.” (Joshua 1: 17 emphasis mine)

Doesn’t that strike you as odd? They obeyed Moses in all things? Really? Hmmmm.

And why is it Joshua’s God and not their God? And why are they willing to be obedient to Joshua and not God? I know in a roundabout way they were obeying God by obeying Joshua. But why don’t they say “We will obey God who will speak through you just as we obeyed God when He spoke through Moses”?

I think our trouble lies when we expect someone else to hear from God and then just tell us what God wants us to do. We don’t personally want to hear from God, oh we might say we do. But really we don’t. But let someone who is “paid” to “hear a word from God” and we’ll follow them.

We get “let off the hook” when we follow that mindset. We can say, “But God didn’t tell me that. He told you that so it’s okay for me to do xyz….”

So how about if we all decide 2012 is the year we learn to self-feed. The year we decide we are done expecting someone else to hear from God, tell us what to do and we’ll obey.

Because I’m not sure about you, but when someone tells me what to do my first thought (and I’m admitting my own ugly humanity) is “who died and made you God!”  I don’t want to follow someone else just because they say “do this.” I don’t want to hear something from the pulpit on Sunday morning and blindly follow because that is “his job” and I have to obey everything the pastor says. I’ve lived that life and it’s not fun nor is it freeing. We are told in Galatians that it is for freedom that Christ set us free. So why are we choosing to live under slavery to someone else?

Who’s with me?