*A re-post from a year and a bit ago, and a reminder of the barrenness of a busy life, as the calendar begins to fill.
June + kids + church + school = busy … and I cannot wait to do a little bit of subtraction!
I have been longing for the end, counting down to the end, all the while it seems as though there are stretches of days when every time I open my email inbox there is another ‘end of year’ event to be attended.
Don’t get me wrong … I love celebrating year ends, graduations, retirements, partings and weddings! They are each, on their own, most delightful events to be invited to, to witness, to attend. It is when they come one after another, with no pause for refreshment, for refueling, that they begin to extinguish the candle of my days, making it too dim to see the light of blessing that each one is.
I yearn for refreshment … the kind that comes from being home from waking until sleeping (maybe even with a little sleeping in between), the kind that comes from not one phone ring, the kind that comes from just us five being home, with no knocks at the door, no invasions of anyone or anything from the ‘outside world’ … except maybe a parcel delivery … and not one with an invoice to be paid!
Socrates was right, the busy life can be barren … lifeless, empty. It can be life-sapping rather than life-giving. It can leave us with little to give.
We need Sabbath rest!
But, do we make that happen? Or do we constantly add more to fill our days (and nights), rather than make time to rec-r-ate?
In Psalm 39:6 we are given the reminder that, “all our busy rushing ends in nothing.”
Is there a barrenness to your busy schedule? Do you, like me, get to a point where the calendar is so full, you refuse to add any more to the daily boxes?
Barren means not reproducing, not productive, it is a ‘lack of’ …
Busy means active, occupied, it is ‘full of’ …
How can we be both busy and barren? How can we be both full of and have a lack of at the same time?
God, in His process of creation, chose rest a feature of the seven day week. One-seventh of life is intended for rest. And this is not just Old Testament theology, because in Mark 6:31, Jesus reminds us that busy needs to be balanced by rest, when he said to his disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”
My you and I find the will to omit something from our calendars this week, and go to a deserted place, and rest a while … and become, once again ‘full of.’
itsawonderfilledlife 