The Lord has been impressing on my heart, slow down. It's interesting because I feel like my word for 2024 is access. But then what the Lord keeps saying is slow down, slow down, slow down. I am trying to press into that and understand what that looks like.
Part of slowing down is taking the pressure off. Taking pressure off means adjusting my expectations of where I show up and how often I show up, and that kind of thing.
I sat down to Heart Doodle with Jesus to sort out what I was feeling when it came to slowing down. Part of me was feeling discouraged and rather hopeless. Then there's the side that can see the benefit of slowing down and the appeal of slowing down. I can see and feel the contrast of my feelings.
As I listened the Lord said, “Slowing down is important. It's obedience.” That struck a chord with me. It's not just oh, do I want to or do I not? It's obedience because He's telling me to slow down. So slowing down is obedience and that's why it's important. Slowing down, on the one hand, feels good, it feels peaceful, so, yes, can I please slow down? The other side is how am I going to make this work? How am I going to get everything done? What does this look like? I don't have the details and I think it's important to realize that walking in faith and living with the Lord often has both sides. When you are walking with the Lord it doesn’t mean everything is roses, easy and peaceful. There's still an enemy. There's still your old programming that pushes you in different ways.
Obedience goes against striving. The pressure comes from my striving and my own expectations of what needs to be done or how it's supposed to look.
In February's Heart Doodling Workshop (recording is available here) the first doodle I titled, What Was. Doing a Heart Doodle with Jesus gives space to feel and identify your feelings. It is an opportunity to pay attention to the thoughts running through your head. Most importantly it is a time to hear God’s perspective on your thoughts, feelings, and circumstances.
I invite you to reach out to me. If you're in a place of “I can't even imagine slowing down, yet there's that place in my spirit where that sounds so appealing, but then that just gets crushed with everything that floods in on top of it, of all the things to do and all the people that would be upset.” reach out to me. We can have a conversation and see how I can best support you. I have options starting at $17 a month.
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Today I want to talk about slowing down for a couple of reasons. One, because that's what the Lord has been impressing on my heart, and it's interesting because I feel like my word for 2024 is access. But then what the Lord keeps saying is slow down, slow down, slow down. I am doing my best to press into that and like, what does that look like? Part of slowing down is taking the pressure off, and taking pressure off means adjusting my expectations of where I show up and how often I show up, and that kind of thing. So I'm going to share some doodles with you and I sat down to just like sort out what I was feeling when it came to slowing down, and so I have the mix of in this doodle. Part of me was feeling discouraged and rather hopeless, and then there's also the side that can see the benefit of slowing down and the appeal of slowing down. So I have that contrast of feelings. And then the Lord said slowing down is important, it's obedience, and so that really struck a chord with me of like it's not just oh, do I want to or do I not, or whatever, but that it's obedience because he's telling me to slow down. So slowing down is obedience and that's why it's important. Slowing down, on the one hand, feels good, it feels peaceful, so, yes, can I please slow down. The other side is how am I going to make this work? How am I going to get everything done? What does this look like? I don't have the details and I think it's important to realize that walking in faith and living with the Lord often has both sides, like there's not just I'm walking with the Lord and everything is roses and easy and peaceful. There's still. There's still an enemy, there's still our old programming that push us different ways. But obedience or slowing down, at least for me in the season, is obedience because it goes against striving, because I keep wanting and like that's where the pressure comes from is from my own striving, my own expectations of what needs to be done or how it's supposed to look.
Mukkove:
So in February's Heart Doodling Workshop which if you join the membership, you can get the recording to do this process of doodling we went through and the first doodle was what was? I used it as focusing on processing business, but it could also be I could also be focusing on a loss or transition of any kind that anytime we have a transition, even if it's a transition we're excited about, there are still things that we're grieving, because there's things that are, that are leaving, and so expressed. I had an overwhelmed and nervous, also curious and hopeful, and some of my thoughts Well, some of the thoughts, because they weren't all mine I recognized as I wrote them down you can't do this. Who do you think you are? And then me thinking I don't have what it takes. I have to create income, I need to make this work, and so recognizing that part of that is being fueled by the enemy accusing me of not being able to do it and the who do you think you are, that comes up a lot.
Mukkove:
But when I ask the Lord what's next slow down, take the pressure off, walk at my pace. And I think that's kind of interesting because, like, if we think of God, like he can go any pace he wants, he can go fast, he can, he's outside of time, and yet he's telling me to walk with him at his pace, which is slow, it's unhurried, took that of like, okay, taking the pressure off. If I take the pressure off, then I feel light and relieved and curious and hopeful and can think things like I am fully equipped, god knows where he's taking me. I can do everything he calls me to do. I can rest, I can enjoy myself. It's fun to take that pressure off. And I have a doodle of me like almost floating, like I'm jumping, you know, just so light. And in the corner of the doodle there's also me, like buried under all of this pressure that I've put on myself of what things need to look like, how I need to perform. Yeah, just all the expectations of what it looks like to mother well, to coach well, to do all these other things, you know, even to be a good Christian and to walk by faith. Well, all these expectations and pressures on that. And so taking that off, because that's me putting that pressure on myself, not the Lord putting that pressure on me.
Mukkove:
And then the next step was really interesting insight into slowing down. Because like, okay, so if I'm going to slow down and I'm going to take the pressure off, then what's the next step? And I realized the first thing I wrote was simplify. Well, that's not a step, that's a process, it's a big process. And then so I was like, okay, so I recognize that simplifying is not actually a step, it is a process with lots of steps. What are some steps I need to take to simplify? And the first thing I wrote down was like, oh, that's not a step either, that's another project.
Mukkove:
And so, seeing that part of the slowing down is recognizing, I've been trying to take projects as steps instead of seeing that they're projects, and so that's part of why there's so much pressure, because I'm telling myself that this is just a step and you should be able to make a step when in actuality, it's a project. So slowing down enough to see when things are projects as far as the actual implementing of them, because we can think like simplifying, like well, that's not a project, or reducing expenses like that's not a project, but when you think about actually implementing it and actually taking next steps, it is a project, because reducing expenses isn't. What's the first thing you're going to have to do to reduce expenses? It could be that you need to figure out what all your expenses are. It could be that you need to find login information before subscription accounts so that you can cancel it. So there's other steps.
Mukkove:
I think it's David Allen and Get Things Done defines a project as anything with more than two steps, and in some ways that feels overwhelming and I was like, oh my goodness, just living this project after project after project. The helpful part of that is to see that if it's a project, then you need to slow down to see what's the actual first step to getting that project done, instead of it telling yourself that it's one step and you're failing because you can't take this one step. That's part of what he's walking me through in this. Going down is don't write down a project or tell myself I have to do this project, thinking it's just a small step. That's part of how I overwhelm myself, where, if I take it and break it down to like this step, this step, this step, then each little step isn't overwhelming and I can see that I'm making progress instead of not getting credit until the whole thing is done. So it's less overwhelming and more productive for me to slow down and really see what all the pieces are instead of seeing it as a big one. Big thing and I think that's part of what he was telling me as for walking at his pace is that I can slow down and see things for what they are if their projects are figuring out what the what the next steps will be.
Mukkove:
This doodle I titled the rhythms of grace. Jesus says come to me all who are weary, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. In the I don't know if it's the message or the passion and one of those translation it talks about walking in rhythms of grace. For that light and easy light yoke Easy yoke, like burden. So when I think about entering those rhythms of grace like that's what I think of when I think of walking at his pace, I'm walking in the rhythms of his grace. I'm walking at his, not only walking in his steps, like walking where he walked, but walking them at the pace he is walking them.
Mukkove:
In my life currently, when I think of walking in rhythms of grace, then I'm feeling peace and confidence and trust. I feel safe and powerful. I feel so much gratitude and I ask the Lord in that place, like what do you want me to know about slowing down? He said slowing down allows me to walk on, to work on your behalf, to get more glory. It builds trust. That's what you're made for.
Mukkove:
Thinking about walking in rhythms of grace and going at his pace so that he gets the credit, he gets the glory. I don't get burned out that he wants that because it's building my trust in him. It's building my trust in myself as I trust him and it's what I'm made for. I'm made to walk in step with him. I'm made to trust him. So being able to embrace that it's good for me and, like I said at the beginning, it's important because it's obedience. God doesn't want our obedience because otherwise we're in trouble. He wants our obedience because when we obey, it turns out best for us. And that can be a hard shift if you grew up in a family that was focused on punishment and control, but it's an invitation to the best life. It's not I'm trying to control you and keep you from annoying me, and just because I'm controlling and I want everything done my way, it's an invitation to the best life, because he designed you, he knows what the best life is and he knows stepping away from all the pressure to be all the things.
Mukkove:
To all the people in a Pinterest or social media, I want to say acceptable, but like we're presented with all these images and ideas of what it's supposed to look like from the media that we consume, whether that's movies or TV or social media or magazines, and they don't necessarily match up with reality and they don't probably match up with what God is saying of what he wants your life to look like, even if it's coming from a Christian influence, because a lot of that is still influenced by human desires and human selfishness and that kind of stuff that distorts what God's really saying, because you'll find plenty of Christians out there telling you to just work harder and do more, but God's saying slow down, be still and see that I am God. Come and sit with me, come and get to know me. All the rest of it will take care of itself, because he's not that. It takes care of itself, I guess, but all the rest of it he's working in it. We don't control it, even when we're out there trying super hard Like I want to make sure this person feels this way. I want to make sure this person doesn't think this is me.
Mukkove:
You burn yourself out on that because you have no control. You can do everything perfect. You can do everything exactly the way you think you need to do it to make sure they don't feel that, to make sure they don't think that, and they're gonna think and feel whatever they think and feel anyway. So don't burn yourself out on things like that Come to him slow down, rest, see what he's saying. Your next steps are see what he's asking you to do. See how much freer you feel, how much more you can actually do when you're doing it from that place of rest and peace instead of that place of striving and trying to earn approval or provide for yourself or protect yourself or whatever it is that you're struggling with. And I guess I want to end this with an invitation to if you're in a place of transition like that, or if you're in a place of like I can't even imagine slowing down like there's that place in my spirit where that sounds so appealing but then that just gets crushed with everything that floods in on top of it, of all the things to do and all the people that would be upset and all that kind of stuff.
Mukkove:
I want to invite you to reach out to me to do a heart doodling session where you can see how this tool works. You can have the safe space with me to explore what's going on, but you also walk away with the tool that you can continue to use in sorting through. Are these my thoughts, or is this the enemy attacking me? What do I do in this situation. Are my expectations realistic or am I trying to control things that I don't control? And these are all things that you can think through in other ways, and if you have ways that are working, that's fabulous.
Mukkove:
I didn't have ways that were working. I didn't have ways that were effective, so I came up with the heart doodling and it's incredibly effective. I use it all the time you can reach out to me, I'll put a link in the comments, because I would love the opportunity to share it with you. Have you experienced some breakthrough and also have you gained a new tool that you can continue to use and share with your kids? Just make such such a big difference to be able to have a way to put things on paper and the clarity that that brings and the record that that brings. Like the Lord told Israel over and over again Remember, remember, remember. Heart doodling is a fabulous way to help you remember what he said, what he's brought you through. So I hope to hear from you soon and I will see you next week.