Busy Body

I know some of you have been really struggling with isolation and separation during this COVID19 pandemic of 2020 (and don’t want to minimize those feelings at all); however, I personally have to be honest.  I’ve been enjoying it.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I miss seeing everyone up close and personal just like the next person.  I miss attending church in person, getting to go visit the grandkids, having lunch out with a friend, and the list goes on.  But you have to admit, it is amazing how much you can get done when staying home instead of running around.   And I did a lot of that.  It wasn’t a bad thing for the most part, but it did keep me from spending time on things that should have mattered more – like my time with the Lord.  I had my quiet in the mornings but then rushed off to do X, whatever X was for that day.  Since the pandemic, I have extended my quiet time into quality time with the Lord.  Not only has it been a longer block of time, it has been more meaningful as I either sit with Him or walk with Him and listen like never before.  And believe me, He has been doing some serious talking.

I told a neighbor yesterday evening as we chatted outside six feet apart that “I don’t want to go back”.  Then I had to correct myself and say “I don’t want to go back as far.”  What I meant is that while serving the Lord is good, I need to prioritize what is better.  My Pastor recently shared this quote during a Sunday sermon:  “We get so busy with the work of the Lord that we don’t have time for the Lord of the work.”  

Ouch!  Guilty as charged.

I have had lots of people tell me in the past how busy I am, often even adding, “they didn’t want to bother me because (yes, you guessed it) I am sooooo busy”.  I started taking offense in my own spirit about that word “busy”.  I was convicted about it, and started releasing some things from my life to free myself up to do the things the Lord was calling me to do.  So maybe this “stay-at-home” order was just another poignant kick-in-the-pants of that same message.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV) says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

I mentioned in my testimony that I shared this week that before Christ, I thought I had to earn my way into Heaven.  I’ve know otherwise for 31 years now, but sometimes still have acted like it by the “works”.

On the other hand, I don’t believe the Lord has called me to only sit in His presence and listen 24/7, and do nothing to serve others.  I like the New Living Translation (NLT) version of John 13:34-35 below:

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.  Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

And 1 Cor. 15:58 (NIV) says, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

How will others know we are His if we don’t love by serving and laboring for the Lord?

These different points in scripture may seem kinda like an oxymoron.  But there’s actually a word for it.  Give me a moment.  It’s right there on the tip of my tongue.  Wait for it…

— B A L A N C E —

We have to ensure that we balance out those otherwise incongruent passages in our lives.  We have to spend quality time with the Lord in order to know the what and how of the work that we should be doing for Him.  If the scale tips too far to one side, we become off balance.

So let’s give up being busy bodies and become balanced beings of the Most High God.

Basking

Bask.  I love that word.  It is a simple, straight-forward, four-letter word.  I think the reason I appreciate the word so much is that, as a cat owner, I see a picture of it on a daily basis.  Picture for yourself a cat in a window sill or laying on the floor in front of the window basking in the afternoon sun.  No care in the world.  Just sitting in the presence of the sun.  Yes please.

A definition of bask that I found was “to expose oneself to pleasant warmth”.  Another was “revel in and make the most of (something pleasing)”.  I especially like that one.  When you add the “ing” to bask, it becomes a present participle.  That means there is some present action involved.  I think of it in terms of not just sitting there but receiving, absorbing, soaking in the presence.  That is exactly what I want my time with the Lord to be like each and every day.  Yes, I want to just sit at the feet of Jesus and BE in His presence.  But I don’t want to stop there, I want to fully experience Him, allow Him to speak into me.  I want to soak in the Son.   I want to let every fiber of my being be touched, moved, transformed by being in His presence.  If I position myself to do that, then He has promised to meet me there.  Jeremiah 29:13 says “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” 

Basking also gives me cause to pause upon the familiar story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42.

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

How many times have I chosen be to Martha instead of Mary?  Too many.  Too many times I allow distractions, things on my to-do list, other priorities at a given moment to interrupt my time with the Lord.  Fortunately, the Lord is always right there waiting for me when I choose to be Mary, bowing down at His feet and hanging on to every word He utters to my heart.

Sorry, I must now go.  I have some basking to do.

In Step

I have a confession to make. I like to dance, I cannot lie. I like country-western dance in particular, the two-step, polka, waltz, you name it… I have since I was in college, and actually met my late husband on the dance floor. Our first date was at the famous, or should I say infamous, Gilley’s in Pasadena, and we danced together for over 34 years. When we danced together in the later years, it was obvious we still “had it”. We stepped onto the dance floor and it was as if we had never left, even though it may have been years since the last time. We were in perfect harmony with one another. My steps followed Mark’s to a T.

I tell you this to illustrate a picture for you and me and our relationship with our Lord. Afterall, doesn’t the Lord want us to be in step with him? He wants us to hold onto to him and follow like there is no tomorrow. He wants us to follow where he leads, even when we aren’t sure where that is yet. He wants us to trust the path that he has laid out for us.

Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.

Matthew 4:18-20

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

John 8:12

When dancing with another partner, as is my fate, I am finding it is more difficult to follow because I don’t quite know what to expect. It even feels uncomfortable at times, just as it sometimes also is uncomfortable in my own shoes (or boots), trying to figure out where the Lord is leading me. As the Lord laid this on my heart, he impressed upon me how we need to spend the time necessary with him on a daily basis by reading His Word, praying, and listening to him.  So when it is time to be whirled in a different direction or to be guided in his will, we will be so in sync with the Lord that it will be easy to follow him.

When I stepped onto the dance floor recently, I found it like riding a bike, although I have to admit there were new dance steps that I didn’t know. So I took lessons to learn them so that I could be more comfortable with those steps in the future. During the lesson, practice, practice, practice was the key. Such is the case in our spiritual walk. We have to live it out daily for those new habits to become ingrained, so that following Christ becomes second nature, and Christ becomes second to none.

Hold on and follow the Lord in the dance of life.

False Start

If you watched as much of the Summer Olympics as I did, you probably saw some of the Primetime footage of the freak accidents that needed to come with a warning of what you were about to see, or the “out-of-bounds” disqualification resulting in removal of a medal. Almost as hard to watch (in my book) was the “false start”. According to Wikipedia, “…a false start is a movement by a participant before (or in some cases after) being signaled or otherwise permitted by the rules to start…”

A couple of examples of the “false start” I saw in the Olympics were in the men’s sprint and hurdle events. This makes sense since “False starts are common in racing sports….where anxiety to get the best start plays a role in the athletes’ behavior” (also accredited to Wikipedia). According to Olympic rules, one “false start” disqualifies the participant, ending the Olympians’ ability to compete in that race for a medal. What a devastating consequence! I watched as one such Olympian sobbed inconsolably on the sidelines with his face to the ground. His chance to run in the final had ended because he had jumped the gun, stepping out into the race too soon. Ouch! What could be worse than preparing for this day and then your chance to compete blown in an instant because of your own anxious actions? As I witnessed the Olympian experience devastating mental anguish, I felt his pain.

I felt the pain of his loss, and also found myself transferring that pain to my own human condition. Afterall, when my humanness is showing, how many false starts have I had as I’ve stepped out ahead of God? How many times have I thwarted, delayed or complicated God’s plans for my life because of my anxious actions? Too many to count?

I am not alone.  Remember Abraham’s backstory in Genesis? Verses 16:1-2 tell of how Abraham heeded his wife Sarai’s suggestion for an alternate plan to having the child God had promised “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid [Hagar}; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” In case you have forgotten, that “alternate” plan did not work out so well for the two of them. It resulted in quite the textbook definition of a dysfunctional family (potentially still impacting the Middle East today). And guess what? Spoiler alert – in the end, God delivered. They just needed to wait for it, in this case they needed to wait for the son God promised and that He delivered when Sarah was way “past childbearing age” and Abraham “as good as dead” (Hebrews 11:11-12).

The moral of Abraham and Sarah’s story is we need to wait for God, resisting the temptation to step out ahead of Him and do it our way on our timetable. Cause that simply doesn’t work folks. Whether the wait is 1/100th of a second or a lifetime, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of waiting on God. Waiting will mitigate being personally responsible for wreaking havoc on God’s plan for your and my life, and save a lot of mental anguish. It can prevent you and I from being our own worst enemy as exemplified in the below cartoon.

Can you relate as I do?

All I can say is the next time I am at the starting gate of something in my life, I vow to wait for God to tell me it is time, resisting the temptation to rush ahead of Him. How about you?

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

and in His word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Psalm 130:5-6 (NIV)

Heart to Heart – A Personal Poetry Collection

Heart to Heart by Karen Pennington | Make Your Own Book