God's Chat With Me About Extreme Activity

Extreme. It’s an adjective that grabs our attention from a sleepy state of status quo and sets our eyes on attaining something out of the ordinary. Extreme sports. Extreme workouts. Extreme fashion. Extreme opinions. The word describes something that exceeds the bounds of moderation.

One glance at my calendar tells me I have exceeded the bounds of moderation in life activity. You too? I’m not surprised. That’s what we women do best! Give me thirty minutes with my girlfriends and the topic of hectic schedules is sure to come up. Women are extreme do-ers. But why? What is our goal in our busyness? Is it because we somehow believe busyness validates our worth? Is it because we fear our kids will miss out on a character-building experience if they’re not involved in a variety of activities? Is it because we long for our lives to be fruitful and productive?

Right or wrong, I have said yes to things for all of those reasons. What if each of those goals could be accomplished in a better, more sanity-saving way?

Jesus says in John 15:5, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.”

The word “remain” is used eleven times in John 15. When I see the same word used that many times, I think of it as God pulling out His fluorescent yellow marker and highlighting something these busy eyes of mine could easily skip right over. In fact, I bet that you and I are very much alike because you’re probably skimming over this blog post so you can get on with whatever it is you’re busy with today!

Slow down for just a moment and let God draw your eyes to Himself with His fat, yellow highlighter. Jesus is saying in John 15 that your worth, your character-building experience and your fruitful life are found in a relationship with Him. They are not found in your constant activity. It took me a long time to get this. God finally taught me, through a circumstance that made me desperate for Him, that my relationship with Him was more important than my activity for Him. When I surrendered the constant activity and made space for Him, I began to radically and regularly experience Him in a very personal way.

There’s a quote by Henry Varley that hits me straight in the heart, “The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a [woman] who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” God is looking for a woman who has extreme devotion toward Him. Out of that devotion, a new woman arises. She is a woman who finds her extreme worth in Christ, not in her extreme activity. She is a woman whose life produces extreme fruit, not extreme busyness. And she is a woman who gives extreme love because she remains in the One who is Extreme Love.  

I want my life and activity to have eternal value. My guess is you do too. Let’s look over our calendars this week and ask God to show us the activities that can be pruned so that the world can see what God can do with and for and through and in a woman who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him!

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