I was almost asleep when four words flashed through my mind. Usually, I reach over and write things like that down so I don’t forget about them in the morning. I didn’t do that this time. I didn’t need to. Forgetting them wasn’t going to be my issue. Being obedient? Now that might be a different story.
It’s been a bit since I’ve written anything. Our world has been so full of words–most of them so loud, hateful, obnoxious, or inflammatory that my “quiet”ambitions felt as though they would get lost in the noise, so I waited…and began to renew my study of simple things. In fact, I posted my last blog with something I had written months ago…and it was all about being obedient in the simple things. God has been working on this for a little bit with me. It is, perhaps, that I am a slower learner on some things than on others, and on this topic, in particular. (hmmm…)
I’m a “fixer” and when something’s wrong, I’m usually the chick with a plan, but I cannot fix all that is wrong right now. My best option is to be in the Word and keep asking God to do all of the fixing and, if He wouldn’t mind, could He please start with me? You have to mean it when you ask God for stuff. He tends to take you seriously. (insert tiny grin here.)
Way back in 2018, God began to push me about adding Margin to my life. Every time I thought had I cut my schedule “enough” I would start to feel pushed to trim even more. It was disconcerting for this one who has always stayed busy doing something…anything, not to appear lazy, I guess. Laziness is a sin according to the way I was raised, and I was determined to let that be the least of mine, so God’s call to Margin took some getting used to for me.
I began to collect a pile of books–which I never made it through…because I was still so busy. FYI, gentle reader: Collecting books is what stubborn learners do when we’re not really sure we want to go “all in” on something. It gives us more time to process, makes it look like we’re being totally cooperative, and provides us with an excuse for why we aren’t just doing it already. (insert eye roll here!) There were books about Sabbath and slow living and simplicity. Seeing those thing listed out here, I am struck that they all begin with an “S” just like the most important other words in my life: Savior and Salvation..and another word that I had also given WAY too high a priority: Schedule. I didn’t know it at the beginning, but God was saving my life in a new way. I’m still not to the end of that and I may never be. It’s so often still a struggle to let go of what you’ve chosen to value and practice with such diligence over the course of a lifetime. I am determined to try, however, so here I am, two years later and still slowly working my way through Margin…and a stack of books.
In her book Abundant Simplicity, Jan Johnson encourages us to truly examine our heart issues.
“Skipping the heart exam puts in grave danger of making simplicity practices about external behavior only. The Pharisees partially ruined fasting and Sabbath-keeping by making them external practices without looking within. They did not practice these diciplines with an openness to hearing God speak or to discern God’s invitation for today.”
She follows up a bit later with a challenge to read Matthew 6:24 every day for a week and ask God to show us how our actions have revealed the “masters” in our lives. When I did that, I found that I had begun to stray from Margin and long for the return to the master of Schedule.
Schedules aren’t a bad thing unless you let them be in charge instead of God being in charge of them. God had used the practice of Margin to save me and my sanity back in 2018, just so I could actually survive 2019. Having done so, I was revving up to return to “business as usual” in a number of life areas during 2020. Not every area, you understand…just the ones that made me feel more in control. It turns out that God isn’t the least bit interested in my being or feeling in control. Imagine that.
So many changes to the entire world have occurred in this year of 2020, that I have begun to think of it as the “year of the fast” in which we are refraining from all kinds of things for a season. If I fail to use this time of necessary fasts and ignore the spiritual lessons to be gained, I will have wasted it. Wasting time still sounds like laziness to me, and I am still determined that that will be the least of my sins.
How have your actions revealed unintended priorities lately? Who/what is in charge of YOUR schedule and does that need to change? How has God used the events and circumstances of 2020 to speak to you? Have you asked Him how He wants to use this to bless you in the years ahead or are you simply chafing under the challenges? Don’t waste the fast…even if it wasn’t your idea to refrain from certain things in the first place.
Remember, God is still in control. He has a plan–and it is for our good.
Grace and Peace!
quiet ambitions: 