rest & rhythms

Hammock and rest go together like oreos and milk.This morning I woke up with a sabbath highway expanding in front of me. Both of my younger boys are in Mississippi with my mama. I could have slept in. Instead my eyes flew open at 6:20. I attempted to sleep longer to no avail. 

So Skip, our dog, and I were on the patio early in the cool of the morning with birds singing us awake and good strong coffee to ensure the job.

As I began the Sabbath thus, I thought about the rhythms of life and why rest is so necessary. I’ve been reading Ruth Haley Barton’s Sacred Rhythms. She describes a way to live and settle into a rhythm of work and rest.

Barton writes:

There is something deeply spiritual about honoring the limitations of our existence as human beings - physical bodies in a world of time and space. A peace descends upon our lives when we accept what is real rather than always pushing beyond our limits. Something about being gracious and accepting and gentle with ourselves at least once a week enables us to be more gracious and accepting and gentle with others. 

I realize that sometimes I ignore my human limitations. I work past the point of exhaustion thinking that the world will somehow cave if I don’t keep on going. Rest eludes me. Often illness forces the rest. 

As I am maturing, this happens less and less. Part of the humbling work God has done in my heart is repentance in this very area... a shrinking of myself and an enlarging of who He is. I am learning to acknowledge my need for rest and to allow it. When rested, I am less likely to grab at things of this world to fill me. I am more likely to let the Spirit instruct me on the next steps. 

I want to give from a place a fullness and when I am empty,  let the Spirit fill me to give again. 

Today, on this Sabbath, will you rest?

welcome

To welcome is to give space to someone. As I wait, I welcome Jesus to my life, to my reality, to the chaos, to this moment.

The King of the Universe, the One Who spoke stars and planets into existence entered our world as an infant - a dependent and vulnerable baby. Is there any greater paradox? If so, I don’t know it. This King doesn’t need my welcome, mind you. But in another paradox, He waits for me to welcome Him. 

Given my pace of life and the intensity, one could assume that the point of Christmas is lost on me. The lists, the menu, the coupons, the sales; all add up to the notion that if I don’t to it, Christmas won’t happen. 

I may welcome Christ into the first 20 minutes of my day. Often, sadly, I have the attitude: Use this 20 minutes, Lord, because I am busy later. 

But do I welcome Him when I realize that I have put 3 tablespoons of baking powder in the rolls instead of 3 teaspoons? What is the posture of my heart when I am negotiating with my brother-in-law who will spend Christmas where? 

Usually I quickly calculate how I will get it done. What will be required? How long will it take? How many other people will I have to involve? Rarely do I stop and say, “I am the Lord’s handmaiden. May it be as you have said.”

This Christmas, as I shop, as I bake, as I love my family well; I want most of all to welcome Christ into my space - to be a womb for the Son of God to dwell. 

Mary’s response to the angel changed her life to be sure. Her “yes” grew from a microscopic zygote to a man who won forever the war on sin and evil. His life, death and resurrection changed the world. May I have the courage, May you have the courage to say “YES” and create a space for God to come and dwell. Our hearts are enlarged in the waiting, in the welcoming.

 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells - even though you still experience all the limitations of sin - you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

Romans 8:9-11