Does your family go on Sunday drives? You may be too young to even know what I’m talking about.
When I was growing up there were Sundays when my family would pile in the car and take off on a Sunday drive. We would ride up into the mountains and enjoy the scenery or sometimes we’d ride out into the country. It was a way to pass the time by and because we weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere in particular, it was relaxing, or so our parents told us.
Reflecting back on it today, it was probably my parent’s way of taking a mini-vacation when they couldn’t afford to go anywhere. It was a way to unplug from the world and just be.
You see, back in the stone ages, when I grew up, if you talked on a phone, you were connected to a wall in a building somewhere. If you sent a text message, it was called a letter and it took a day or two for the United States Postal Service to deliver it.
Today, we are so plugged in that people can reach us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Between emails, texting, Tweeting, and the old fashioned phone call, people always seem to have a way to track us down.
Every now and then we just need to be.
Psalm 46:10 says,
Be still, and know that I am God.”
My quiet place to “BE” each day.
Notice the comma in that verse. It conveys a pause. First, be still. Just be still. Stop moving. Stop talking. Stop everything and just be. Then and only then will we pause long enough to recognize God, to know Him, the vastness of who He is and what He’s capable of at any time in any situation.
This morning, as I sat before the Lord asking Him what to share with you, He took me back to the Sunday afternoon drives I experienced as a child and I only heard one word….BE.
So, my challenge to you today, is to find some time to just be. Let’s make it fun too. When you come back to the technology part of your day, post a comment and let us know where you found time to just be. Upload a photo. I’d love to see it. I’ve included mine in this post.
The timing of this post could not be anymore perfect. Last night I typed out these words to my cousin, “it’s like my mind is always in a million places but my body can only do so much at a time. But then at the same time, as much as I like to stay busy, I would love to just sit and be.”
It’s amazing how we have to train ourselves to relax. Just “being” is probably our body’s natural state. Yes we are to work and work hard, but “being” is not the absence of that. In fact, we have to allow ourselves to rest so that we can rejuvenate to start again. And we have to rest so that we can meditate on why we are working in the first place!
It’s like the Mary and Martha story…
“As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.’
But the Lord said to her, ‘My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.’” Luke 10:38-42
I want to examine this for just a second from Martha’s perspective. Here she is giving all of her energy into preparation for a meal for her God and her sister is just sitting, SITTING with Him. I can almost hear her thoughts, “how dare she?! She is being so lazy! Of course we /all/ want to sit with Jesus, but someone has to make the food for Him so that He’ll feel welcomed!” Her mind is probably racing at this point, and she is probably going through every scenario possible in which her sister can be dragged back into the kitchen.
But then Jesus reveals something to her. Notice the words He uses in relation to Martha’s work. Instead of affirming her in her duties, as she probably thought He would, He uses words like distracted, worried, upset, and details. Furthermore, He tells her gently that there is only one thing that is important, one thing above all that matters, and it is not what she is doing. Mary found it: it was and will always be HIM.
I think we believe that if we are not struggling that we are not working hard enough, and that’s simply not true. We have to remember that the God of the whole universe allowed time to “just be.”
I strongly recommend listening to this entire song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-vjd6LJFi0
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