Do you ever get lost in your day? If you happen to be in the same season of life as I am, you might find yourself standing a little bewildered in the middle of your kitchen, as your five year old and nearly four year old are on their hands and knees on the linoleum, simultaneously wailing at the top of their lungs because of the wretched disappointment in which their lives have turned out.

You know, because your boy doesn’t like the toast with “nuts” in it and your girl seriously needs her chocky milk “warmed up.” All the while, your eight month old is pulling all the cook-books off the shelf for the umpteenth time. A momma can feel so lost before 10 a.m.

And if you’re not careful, everything will ream out of control from there and you’ll only get more lost-er. (No, that’s not a real word, but you know what I mean.)

When the narrative of my day is reading a certain way and I want it to read a different way, I have to pull the stops. I have to pause and reorient myself. That’s all I know to do. I have to sit down in the middle of the floor with the two wailing kids and hold them tight and speak some tender, but firm truth down into their souls. It’s hard work. It is. Especially when I feel scattered and frenzied myself, but then that’s not so bad, because it just means I can identify with them here. All of us in need of grace.

So, we cry out to God and we ask Him for help. Sometimes our prayers are just this simple, “Lord, please help. Please come. Remember when You calmed the storm? That day You said from the rocking boat, ‘Peace be still’ and all was still? Yeah, we need that here.”

And it’s not that our circumstances change. I’ve still got to get up and teach my littlest babe about the “no-touchies.” And I’ve still got to explain to Hopey that we don’t always get our chocky milk warmed up. And I’ve got to help my oldest boy see that not every time we get to have our favorites. But, that it’s pretty wonderful that we have food. And so we thank God for the food and try to figure out how to help the folks who don’t actually have any.

I’ve still got to muddle through the mess. But, I can keep plodding along all lost and stressed and harried. Or I can press through the hard while leaning into the heart of God, encompassed by and filled up with His peace. There’s a huge difference.

I am fallen and the world is fallen and not as it should be, so my default is always toward entropy. There’s this slow but sure decline toward chaos and disorder going on around me and inside of me. So, I have to be intentional. I have to expend energy if I want to stay centered. I have to do something if  I want to make things right again.

And how does a Jesus-follower make things right again? By, telling ourselves the same story over and over again. We realign ourselves back to the Center of all things. by looking to Jesus and keeping company with Him. This life is a whole long messy, beautiful process of learning to keep our eyes on Christ.

Sometime in the day, maybe it’s when the kids are having their afternoon “quiet time” in their rooms or perhaps it’s just after I tuck them in their beds at night, I’ve got to carve out some time to remember again who God is and who I am in relation to Him.

So, who is God? He’s the Creator of the cosmos.  The Sustainer of all things. My Rock. My Shelter. My Hiding Place. My Peace.

And who does God say that I am?

• I am a new creation. And because of Jesus, I’m a friend of God. (2 Corinthians 5:16-20)
• I am complete in Him. (Colossians 2:10)
• I’m free. Free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)
• I’m called out of darkness and into marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)
• I am a co-laborer with Christ. (Ephesians 2:10)
• I’m more than a conqueror through Him who loves me. (Romans 8:37)
• I’m God’s dwelling. His home. (1 Corinthians 6:19)
• I am rescued by a Rescuing King and I’ve been adopted into His righteous Kingdom full of blazing light. (Colossians 1:13)

The list goes on and on.

We have to slow down enough to find our way. The Way. Because even Jesus followers can get so lost in a day. But, this slowing down, this looking up and again to Jesus, readjusting ourselves once more on the True Center—this is how the lost get found.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6) (ESV)

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. (Colossians 1:16-18) (The Message)