Being still

Over the past few months, I have had some time to recover from overloading my life in the past years and not taking time needed for rest. It's amazing how our body reacts to overload and stress we were never designed to carry.

I've failed to understand how important it is for us to have rest and margins of time and energy to carry us through crisis and storms. Not having these nescssary margins in my life has resulted in a multitude of health issues, some of which have even caused me to be hospitalised over the past months.

Everyone needs to store up reserves; reserves of energy, reserves of finances, reserves of rest. We so often deplete ourselves with too many responsibilities, ones that seem good at first, even helping others, but which in reality drain us and eat at us like paracites. Our lives get busier, more involved with doing "good things", expending our resorces to the extent that we run the risk of becoming as an empty shell, suseptible to be tossed around in a storm like a ship without a ballast, or a sailboat without a keel.

Storms do come into our lives, they cannot be avoided. But how do we prepare ourselves to navigate through the storms so we make it through in tact, without it costing our health and wellbeing? By proper nutrition, rest, exercise, in other words being fit before rough storms hit. We love easy sailing, when things go well, and in our optimism we sometimes push ourselves too hard, neglecting to check the reserves we need for rough seas. This also includes reserves of wisdom, to know our limits, to know what to do in future difficulties we so often prefer to deny.

One of my favourite Psalms (16:10) says "be still and know that I am God". I've recently gained a new appreciation for stillness. In the midst of a storm, where your boat is rocking from side to side, you're nautious, waves are crashing against the bow, maybe your even taking on water, it's difficult to be still. It's difficult to listen to instruction, or even read instruction whe you are being tossed around. Being unprepared and waiting to call out to God for help in the midst of a storm is not quite the same as taking time before we sail being still, listening, being wise and preparing in advance of a potential storm.

Imagine the wisdom we could obtain about avoiding or weathering a storm before it hits... Think of the reserves we could build into our lives, in training and preperation for difficulties. Life is not clear sailing, and anyone who thinks so is fooling themselves. For most of us there are rough seas ahead, but God has promised to provide us with all we need to get through storms, if we'd only prepare and equip ourselves accordingly. That means being still, listening, training and preparing with all the reserves we need to carry us through.

Friday, looking forward

it's friday, end of the workweek, beginning of the weekend. Isn't it so amazing how one day can change a person's outlook and additude? Friday is a day we look forward, and rarely look back. We want to forget the past week and just relax. But what about Monday? Do we look forward then? Ever wonder how one day of the week can change our view and additude? I guess in our lives we have our "fridays" and we have our "mondays", and at the end of the week we soemtimes forget the effort to reach "friday" only to remember it again on Monday.

I'm rambling here, not sure what I want to say, but there's a thought hidden in here somewhere, i guess the thought is "what o we look forward to?" Do we trust God and believe it will be a good Monday, even though it means more work than Saturday or Sunday. Everyday is an opportunity for something good. And each morning we can say "This is the day God has created, and I will rejoice and be glad in it" on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,...

Loosing Time...

On this side of the pond yesterday, we turned forward the clock. "Spring forward" means most of us lost an hour sleep. But I've just lost three hours instead of one! You see, as I'm driving east from Colorado towards Michigan, in addition to the time change I also crossed two time zones, much the same way as I did travelling west a few weeks earlier. Of course travelling west I gained 2 hours...

As we travel, I realize timing and direction has a big effect our gaining or loosing time. Of course travelling always in one direction will never add up to more time in the end. But isn't this what we sometimes try to do in our lives? We speed in a specific direction hoping do more and in a way "gain time"... But in all this don't we eventually just end up just loosing the time we've "gained", sometimes loosing even more than we expect. .

Ecclesiastes tells us, “There is a time for everything . . . ” And do we understand the "season" and "reason" for all we do. Ever thought why are we do the things we do? Is there a destination? a purpose? How quickly do we need to get there? As we hurry, could we miss a turn or perhaps even get the direction wrong? Perhaps taking more time we can find the deeper meaning for our lives, rather than speeding and chasing after the wind...

What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains for ever.
The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say, Look! This is something new? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men!
I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Ecclesiastes 1:3-14