Being vs. Doing. As I organize for a huge summer list - I find my brain fighting between resting and trusting the process or choosing the anxious - it all about my ability and productivity route. Sidebar- The truth is I have several books that I would just like to get absorbed in and read. I will do some of that but neglecting my house and the projects of the summer cannot succumb to my reading list entirely. However, reading is directly related to my WELL "being" so to speak. I was reading something about reading lists the other day and it said read volume and don't get loaded down with the minutia. OK. - Check - that makes it a lot easier. I hope something rubs off just by repetition.
Anyway, that brings me to the being vs. doing. I wonder for myself if I will ever get to the point where I can stop reminding myself of this and actually internalize that being is the point, where I will find that I am no longer grading myself by my checklist and needing to talk myself back into resting on the grace of Christ. It is God that does the work. Work flows from His grace and is a natural byproduct of joy and excitement; however, it is easy for me to look at a mountain of work and get tunnel vision and yet again choose tocircumvent the process.
"I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all, but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess." - Martin Luther
"We moderns hold to a strangely disjunctive view of the relationship between life and work this enabling us to nonchalantly separate a person's private character from his or her public accomplishments. But this novel divorce of root from fruit, however genteel, is a ribald denial of one of the most basic truths in life: What you are begets what you do; wrongheaded philosophies stem from wrongheaded philosohers; sin doen't just happen- it is sinners who sin" Dr. Grant, Killer Angel
"Biography is destiny" - E. Micheal Jones
"Happy is he who not only knows the causes of things but who has not lost touch with their beginnings." - GK Chesterton
An Ancient Prayer
Give me a good digestion, Lord,
and also give me something to digest.
Give me a healthy body, Lord,
and the sense to keep it at its best. (Boy, this is getting more and relevant as I age)
Give me a healthy mind. good Lord,
to keep the good and pure in sight.
Which, seeing sin, is not apalled, but
finds a way to set it right.
Give me a mind that is not bound
That does not whimper, whine or sigh.
Don't let me worry much over
the fussy thing called I. (Am I doing that right now? Yikes!)
Give me a sense of humor Lord,
give me the grace to see a joke,
To get some happiness from life and
pass it on to other folk.
-Thomas Webb
Lest I forget to rest in the being- give me balance Lord.
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly for the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." (It struck me as I read this again, I love this passage, it so clearly shows the empathy of Christ with our fallen nature and deep desperation for Him - it strikes me that we are to pray, He sends, and it is His harvest)
How blessed and marvelous are the gifts of God, beloved. Life in immortality, spendor in righteousness, truth in boldness, faith in confidence, discipline in holiness: all these are in our understanding. What then, are the things prepared for those endure? The Creator, Father of the Ages the holy one knows their number and beauty. 1st Epistles to the Corinthians - Athananuis
That all these things are possible to him who believes, that they are less difficult to him who hopes, that they are more easy to him who loves and still more easy to him who perserveres in the practice of these virtues.
-Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, Conversation 4.
As I joked with my sweet friend, the other day, once again, as always, "You know, when it's not ALL about you, it's ALL about me. Right?! Wrong. It is all about HIM. Always about HIM.
Being confident of this very thing, that HE who began a good work in me will BRING it to completion. -Phillipians 1:6
What we think so we are. It is always all about Him. He is the only, and all worthy.
No comments:
Post a Comment