The Subtle Everyday

In our culture we're concerned with the product.  The end justifies the means.  The way you get somewhere is not as important as the destination.  Sometimes we forget that there is a process at all.

We can sit down, write something, post it and have feedback in half an hour or less.  We can find out what is happening around the world in seconds flat.  We're conditioned for the quick and easy, and my generation has been told we can do anything.

The possible outcome is frustration.  Frustration that we don't have the dream job yet.  Frustration that we don't have the marriage that we always wanted.  We don't have the friendships that we have a deep longing for.

The possible solution is in the subtle everyday.  It is in the small things.  It is in learning how to schedule and be organized even when you aren't very good at it.  It is learning to sit and listen to someone, or take time and work through interpersonal weirdness.  Like I posted last time it may mean slowing down.

Someone whose advice I value highly has said recently, "Where you are going does not matter as much as who you are right now."

Just Slow Down.

Today I slept.  Not in a metaphorical sense where I just zombied through the day.  I took a nap.

I needed it.  I have a drive to check off all the things on my list, and I feel awful if I don't.  The cool thing is, after I had completed most of what I needed to do this morning and I got to the one I hadn't done yet ("prayer") I started to pray, and I might have heard God talk back.  What He might have said was "Go take a nap."

I'm a lot of things right now.  I'm a husband, grad student, student-counselor, worship leader, sometime discussion leader, aspiring writer, friend, son, grandson and great-grandson.  And in the midst of the responsibilities I think I hear God telling me to slow down.  You know, Sabbath.  Rest.  Rest in His love.

Go take a nap.