Excellence

Excellence.

In a world where I am surrounded by piles of laundry and sinks full of dishes, is there excellence to be found? Is there excellence I can achieve? My mind circles around the concept..the idea of how do I make excellence a reality in my life, my family, my marriage and my ministry.

I look up.

How, Lord, do I mold my heart to do all things for you; and to do all things to the best of my ability so that—in the seemingly insignificant and the obviously grand—excellence can be expected of me? When my mind is splintered by things that must be done, failures of myself and others, and those things in the path behind that I wish I could redo, I have to learn to look up.

Psalm 34:4-5 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him and He will do it.”

And so I proceed in this day to attempt to learn what it means to delight myself in the Lord. Frankly, so many terms in the Word of God are difficult for me to paint into reality. I find myself asking (often) ”What does that look like in real life?” If I am supposed train my heart and my mind to delight myself in the Lord what do I need to do now, that I have not done before? Or, perhaps, do I need to weave the small moments of grace-filled successes of my past into a pattern that emerges with more clarity in my future?

Proverbs 1:7 says, “Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

This summer I had the privilege of attending a Christian women’s conference in North Carolina. Put on by the most gifted and humble group of women I have been blessed to watch, I was inspired by their reality of excellence. In living color I watched it and was filled with the vision of how greater excellence looked in real life. I came empty, praying to be filled.

And in that small window of time I humbly acknowledge that I was not a fool.

I cherished the preciousness of the wisdom and instruction. A tiny moment of delightful victory basked in a flood of grace. Many moments that weekend were spent delighting in the Lord and His gifts to my weary heart. Home now, still surrounded by piles of laundry and sinks full of dishes and facing new challenges;  home schooling and a mother-in-law with severe dementia and a newly broken hip, my heart yearns for excellence and my mind is recharged with the possibility of it.

 Is God calling you to greater excellence?

Brighten A Corner is on the path to greater excellence, and would love your help. Would you consider helping? With a financial donation? By participating in a committed prayer team? By attending and/or helping with the upcoming Beth Moore satellite conference in a few weeks and/or the BAND TOGETHER event in November?

It is impossible to overstate how much every little bit of help means to us. We are tremendously grateful for where we started and where we are…and are anxiously awaiting the future.

 A future full of excellence.