time

Lazy Day

What is my favorite way to spend a lazy day?

I can only recall a time when days were allowed to be lazy. It was nearly a work of art to establish a day for being lazy. It was before lazy days were miracles you never expect or count on to materialize. There was a day when lazy was allowed, but miracles are not always allowed in our way of life.

Today I cannot imagine one lazy day; I can barely imagine a couple lazy hours. Our days are full of responsibility and expectations. The days are full of tasks and dependability. Lazy times require a lot of room that no longer exists.

If I had even a day, I would steal it away like a grimy criminal. It would have to be under the blanket of night after my children were asleep. I would need an alibi for why I even deserved that lazy time. The law of responsibility would be breathing down my neck while I tried to get away with theivery. An outright criminal, I tell you!

Save some for Me

savetimeLast night I had a real hard time sleeping likely due to the great hunger from eating less and less these days on a diet, but I believe it was equally a spiritual hunger from less and less experience of God's presence these days. When I could not sleep, I chose to listen to that spiritual hunger. God spoke to my listening heart last night, and it was to say, "Save room for me."

Over and over God spoke these words to my heart last night. "Save room for me." I laid in my bed hearing those words over and over until the word "enough" was added to the phrase. God spoke to my heart and said, "Save enough room for me."

In a time of spiritual hunger and wilderness, God has made clear to me I need to begin setting aside and saving time for Him. Also, that time needs to be enough for Him to fit. I am not to save time for my God in the forced margins of time I concoct.

With no job, I have been surprised how little time it seems I have now. I am walking a wilderness. D.T. Olson said, "When one is forced to endure the wilderness for a time, it may be experienced either as a place of maturing and learning or as a place of disintegration and death." At this point, I feel more pressed than I did when I was employed in full time ministry, and right now has been a difficult wilderness season for me.

I have been challenged to begin asking WHAT instead of WHY. "O my God, what are you doing in my heart and life while I am waiting?" I do not need to ask WHY God is doing anything, because most likely is a question to which I will never get the answer.

Right now, though, I am to save enough time for my God, my Abba, and my Jesus. I am to save time that is enough for Him to fill rather than cram tightly within.