Are the holidays over yet? There is a part of me that is quite ready for them to end. Please do not misunderstand me I love the holiday season, which is that time of year that runs between Thanksgiving and New Year where we all seem in constant motion. I love the celebrations, the family, the friends, the travelling, the food, the goodwill, the gifts, the joy, the services, the darker nights, and all the rest. Part of the reason we have to take so many days off of work during this time of year is because if we attempted to do all we had to do and work a full schedule some of would die.
I am quite serious! I have more wrinkles in January than I did in November, to say nothing of my weight gain, and the lack of sleep. Without those days off to recover from it all I might just not be able to make it, and I suppose that is why I am ready for them to end. Surely it is mighty enjoyable, but it is mighty exhausting too!
I need a moment to breathe, to just be, whatever that means. Perhaps what I need is to sit, or stand, or lie down, and just pray and meditate, and listen to the deep silence in between words and notes of music where God speaks. “Be still and know that I am God,” the psalmist quotes from the Divine. But we are not a people who know about being still. We are people who are on the move. ADD is something we each have some problems with.
Let me be honest and admit that I have a problem being still even at a red light. That minute or two that I am sitting alone in my car waiting for the light to change is a moment where I can check my email or make a call or wonder what I should be doing when I arrive to wherever I am going. If I cannot maintain some semblance of stillness while in my car for a minute, with music coming from the radio, how on earth can I possibly be still enough to know that God is God?
That is part of a problem we have in my opinion. We do not know God is God. Surely we say we worship God. We go through the motions. Sometimes we even pray on our own, and when we do God better be ready for us. “Do you believe in God?” someone asks. “Why yes I do, of course I do,” we reply but what if someone asked us to explain something of God?
Children ask questions about God because, even if they go a mile a minute, in their innocence there is stillness, and they start to wonder about God. Most of the questions I field in my line of work about God either come from children, the parents of children who need help, or non-believers. Perhaps the rest of us are afraid to ask, afraid to search, or perhaps we cannot be still long enough to realize we are not sure.
I was speaking to someone from another church who was considering leaving the church behind. “It just doesn’t speak to me anymore.” “Why is that?” I asked. “I don’t really know, I’m just not getting anything out of it. You know what I mean?” “What are you putting into it?” I asked. Then I just got a quizzical kind of look in return like the person never considered about having to put something into it.
I had a friend, a really good friend. We were inseparable for a while, then one of us moved away. Someone asked me the other day how my old friend was doing. “I don’t know, we haven’t talked in years,” I said. “Really? You guys were inseparable, what happened?” I made up some excuses but the truth is we stopped putting anything into the friendship. If one does not tend to their relationships they rarely survive.
The same is true of our relationship with God I have discovered. I have been running so much during the holidays that I have not taken a moment to be still, to sit with God and catch up. I have talked about God, led people in worship of God, but I have not taken much time to sit with God myself. Today I will. I will take a moment and put something into my relationship with God. I am sure it will be refreshing; in fact it may even feel like a holiday.
Hoping to hop on the wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
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