It’s hard to believe it was just Christmas, but it was! And
now it is just a few weeks from Easter.
Where does time go? A day used to contain 24 hours, but recently it has
been whittled down to maybe a mere 16 or 18.
I’m not sure how that happened, but I truly believe it has. Those few hours get eaten up so very quickly
with things that were never even a part of our vocabulary 20 years ago.
For instance, do you remember writing I don’t know, maybe 20
or 30 letters a day to friends or family?
I remember junk mail was a real issue, but I certainly don’t remember
getting 25 to 30 flyers, coupons, or other correspondence in my mailbox each
day. Then there’s the whole constant
chatter thing. Do you remember the phone
ringing off the hook like maybe 40 or 50 times a day with a friend asking if
you like the same companies they do, or how you feel about an article they read
in the paper, or them dropping by to show you a picture they like and thought
maybe you would like too?... Me either.
As nice as it can be to have email, texting, and social
media sites like Facebook or Twitter, it seems to me they are stealing the
hours of my day at a break neck pace.
And if I recall correctly, they were each birthed in order to SAVE us
time! I cannot remember the last time
any of them saved me time… not really.
Now, I am not saying I am willing to boycott them or leave my membership
or become a social recluse (though I did think about all three… for a while…) But I do need to consciously work at stopping
their power and authority to take my days away, hour by hour, minute by minute.
Especially now, during Lent, as we prepare our hearts to
stand before the open tomb of Easter morn (but any other time, as well) we need
to stand tall and reclaim our time. As I
have been teaching on the spiritual disciplines these past weeks, it has become
apparent that these are called disciplines for a reason. If we are not purposeful and disciplined
about including them in our lives, they likely will never happen. So this week we are focusing on
meditation.
Psalm 1 sings out “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step
with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of
mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That
person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in
season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.”
Oh, how I want to be planted along that stream of water! Please, nourish me Lord! I get so dry and
chapped and feel as though I could be blown away in the wind if it were not for
those extra pounds I put on through the holidays! But when? When will I find time to meditate
on your laws, to love You Oh Lord, and love others in my life? Between the emails and the texts and the
facebook messages and likes and bleeps and tweets of a twittering, chirping,
obnoxious compute? [sigh] Okay. Okay. I
get it. I won’t find this time, but I can
make this time.
Each of us can find 10 or 20 minutes each
day, even before the computer gets turned on, and we can just breath. No purpose.
No response. Just breath. And after we have found ourselves breathing
for several minutes, uninterrupted by the outer world, then we can actually turn
to scripture and be fed. We can plant
our roots along the stream’s edge and allow God to filter up into our veins the
Living Water that brings new life day in and day out. If we don’t, Christmas will turn to Easter
and Easter to summer and summer to fall and before you know it, we will find
ourselves dry and parched, crumpled and withered, floating away in the wind…
extra ten pounds on our rear, or not…
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