“…sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool”  

Psalm 110:1

It was a short verse, at that 4 am rising, but the minute I read it, it hit me:

There is something about where we sit and what happens to our enemies.

right there on the same page, are promises about being right there at the King’s right hand.

“For he stands at the right hand of the needy one.” (Psalm 110:31)

“The Lord is at your right hand.” (Psalm 110:5)

There is something about where we sit and what happens to our enemies. 

Anger. Depression.  The feeling of sinking with no way out. Irritability towards my kids. Lies of guilt and condemnation ruminating around in my head. Utter defeat.

This is where I have been sitting.

Blessed is the man who walks NOT in the counsel of the wicked…nor sits in the seat of scoffers. Psalm 1:1

And I had taken up a spot right there among them. Knowing cognitively the Bible verses, but scoffing at their power to break into my crazy hectic days of tending to one emergency after another, with not a chance to breath ,and an escalating list of things needing to be done that I was falling hopelessly behind on. (and the list wasn’t one of “write a blog post” but more like clean the kid’s school uniform so they have something to wear tomorrow, and shoot!-that-time-consuming-moms-need-to-help-leaf-project-is-due-in-two-days, and we’re eating rice again because I STILL haven’t braved another take-six-kids-into-the-grocery-store trip. )

And so I scoffed. and sunk deeper. deeper into despair that I would ever be able to keep up this running-on-fumes-pace. Deeper into a pit of atomic bomb reactions to the kids misbehavior.

If you fail to sit at the feet of King Jesus, you will inevitably end up sitting somewhere you don’t want to be. 

And those mornings that I clung on to every last minute of sleep, and those 6:15 risings with an explosion of urgency as kids needed uniforms, and lunches needed packing, and kids needed directing, not to mention the grumpy moods that come with the early risings or bickering over whose turn it is to make breakfast that needed peacemaking….

they left the spot of sitting at the feet of Jesus very empty. for many mornings.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying.  I’d get up and try to steal a few moments of quiet with the Lord, but our house isn’t that big. and inevitably,

they would find me.

diapers needed changing, disputes needed settling, “I can’t find the oatmeal!!” needed tending to,

with every moment stolen, or thought process fractured,

I would become more embittered.

“Don’t you know that this time is going to save you from having an angry mother all day!?!”

But how do you explain that to an infant, or a two-year old, or even a 4, 5, 7, and 8 year old who thinks your sole reason for living is to come at their every beck and call.

So I found myself sitting in the seat of scoffers. angry at my robbed time. angry at the every need. angry at God who gave me such a big load of responsibility that I don’t even have time to have a quiet time anymore.

but my King, who is for me, not against me, He beckons me still.

“sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

HE is able to make these enemies, these despairing thoughts, these anger outbursts, these times of tears to become my footstool. Not totally disappeared. Present, but under control, Nearby, but under my feet…. instead of overwhelming my head.

But the key is in the sitting. Sitting there with Jesus, at those three hundred red lights per day that I sit at, trucking children back and forth to school (did I mention that some of my kids get out at noon, and one gets out at 3:00? Thats a lot of driving back and forth…) and doctors appointments, and extra curricular activities.  The key is in the sitting, rising early enough to be there at his feet before the children are at mine. The key is sitting at his right hand with my thought life, until 

until he makes my enemies my footstool.

And as I sit at my King’s feet, my enemies will sit at mine.