My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. Psalm 62:5

Now that I am no longer involved with the food bank and Heartland Hunger business,  I’ve received an unexpected gift – the gift of time. In the past when I was at my busiest I often wished for more hours in the day so that I could…

Take a morning walk

Pray more faithfully

Catch up on the mountain of paper work

Cross off yesterday’s to-do list

Get a head start on today’s to- do list

Clean out those messy closets

Visit with old friends

Do everything I really enjoy – which would be…?

Write my story.

I’ve never had enough time. Whether I was a student, a mother raising children, a teacher, volunteer, or administrator my days were never, ever long enough to do and accomplish and complete everything on my plate. I am not alone. Hasn’t each one of us wished for more than the daily 24 hours allotted to us by God? We silently cry out, “Lord, where has the day gone – and look at what I still have to do. If only I had another hour or two!”

I find myself now at the opposite extreme. Time has plopped itself at my feet like a large stray dog looking for attention and I don’t know what to do with it. There is no place I have to go, no persons I have to meet with, nothing that I need to take care of or be responsible for. I can now play all day long. Sounds great, doesn’t it? It is a mixed blessing.

I didn’t realize how hard this would be. Resigning from HH&RC was comparatively easy. Walking it out is an entirely different matter because now I am like a fish out of water. Take away the aquarium and suddenly I flop around in the air, totally out of my   element which has always been doing something. Being task and goal oriented is not a bad thing, but as a friend reminds me , “ Friede, you are a human being not a human doing. “  In reality, I can easily fill up the next 30, 60, 90 days with  busy work. I could clean out every closet in the house, etc., etc., and when finished still ache with a deep malaise of the spirit.   If Satan can’t entice you to sin, he will distract you to keep very, very busy instead. It is one of his cruelest, cleverest ploys to keep us from God.

In this present season of open ended time, the challenge is to go against busyness and to wait on God , with God. Psalm 46 calls us to hear God’s Voice in inner silence.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

Stillness isn’t a void . It isn’t mindless emptiness or bored waiting for the next thing. Stillness is purposeful for there is a very  active command in the psalm: Be still. Know your God. Exalt Him in the earth. The waters of stillness run deep into the heart of God Himself. It is where we know the Unknowable One.

God did not intend fish to be in fish tanks. Fish are created for rivers and lakes and oceans. Like them we live and breathe and have our true being elsewhere, not in aquariums, however wonderful they are, but in the still, vast oceans of God’s Spirit, in Christ Jesus.  To enter in we paradoxically have to wait.

Friede