Skip to main content

Pursuits vs. Presence of Mind

Two of my favorite all-time episodes of The Andy Griffith Show are "Man in a Hurry" and "The Sermon for Today." Both episodes take you on a tour of a typical Sunday, our designated day of rest, disrupted by unreasonable endeavors, and the mayhem, distress, and personal clashes that always makeup the fallout of such untimely activity.  We laugh because we've been there. How many times have we overloaded ourselves on holidays, vacations and weekends, and wound up ten times more exhausted than when we began? The humor lies in the irony -- in trying to power-pack our leisure time, the way we do the rest of our schedules, we completely sabotage our own efforts. We turn our "down time" into just another version of our "up time" -- multi-tasking, scheduling, hurrying, exerting....exhausting!

As women, we tend to guilt-trip ourselves about resting. Resting isn't loafing. When Proverbs 31 talks about how the ideal woman doesn't indulge in idleness, I'm pretty sure it's not talking about much-needed rest, time for reflection and devotion, or time to refresh ourselves. Without these things, we become emotionally and spiritually bankrupt, and incapable of being the superwoman we think we should be. Idleness could be better described as engaging in a lot of meaningless activities, rather than making good use of our talents, such as too much retail therapy, celebrity gossip, or excessive amounts of time being self-centered.

As you plan your week, don't forget to build in some true down time. Unless we stop our clambering around for a few moments, we will never gain the presence of mind to put things in perspective. When we stop, breathe, and rest, we can hear from the Lord, be inspired, have fresh ideas, creative thoughts, and a clearer picture of the challenges that lie ahead. 

The Word tells us to seek peace, and pursue it (Psalm 34:14). Pursuing peace implies we need to make a deliberate effort to look for it. If we are too busy chasing everything else, we will never achieve that.  Add "REST" to your daily to-do list. Slow down. Schedule your quiet time, and stick to it. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When it’s too much...#INSUFFICIENT

It’s Monday again, and —-wait, how did you just react to that? Did your shoulders square up or droop? Did you take a deep, invigorating breath, or expel a sigh? Whatever you’re facing this week, whether it’s the fire-breathing dragon in the corner office, the mean girl in the next cubicle or the inadequacies you see when you look in the mirror, the fact that you’re facing the same ongoing battles over and over doesn’t make them any easier, or the outcome any more certain.  Some days you still feel like the tiny 6th-grader, overloaded with heavy books, forgetting your locker combination, getting bullied out of your lunch money, and overwhelmed by the crowd of boisterous over-achievers. There you are, just trying to get by without being run over, caught up and pulled down in the undertow. Much like the chaos and turbulence of a hallway crowded with middle-schoolers hyped up on sodas and hormones, some of the biggest rivers we have to cross are overwhelming, mind-boggling and equal...
1 comment
Read more

The Friday Frenzy

How the weeks fly by! It's Friday, already, and here we are, dizzied by the sight of our to-do lists...so many boxes, still unchecked! Where do you begin? It seems that your desk needs tidying up, your closet needs cleaning, or perhaps the fridge needs to be cleaned out. Rather than face the mountain of tasks we should be doing, we plunge into a frenzy of something I call " productive procrastination. " If it requires explanation, perhaps it's not one of your unfortunate inclinations, as it is mine. For clarification, however, allow me to define the phrase: exerting your efforts in otherwise non-urgent, comparatively mindless tasks, rather than the more urgent ones requiring your full attention. It's something we all do, once in a awhile--something I've done from an early age. The phenomenon (as I choose to categorize it, since it seems to take on an energy and behavior all its own) presents itself whenever feel unequal to the priority tasks at hand. For w...
Post a Comment
Read more

#INSUFFICIENT Part 3...Running on empty

Every day, in some way or another, we seem to come up short. Our output exceeds our income, and we are "in the red" when it comes to so many things, such as time, energy, money...even enthusiasm. Being tapped out seems to have become the norm, as we chase every opportunity, pursue countless friendships, enlist ourselves in every new cause, and rack up accomplishments, jam-packing our resumes, calendars, and Facebook friends list until we don't have a single spare moment to ourselves. From the outside, it looks like a "full life;" on the inside, it feels pretty empty. How can something so empty feel so heavy? First of all, "more" isn't necessarily "better." Have you ever been behind a group of tween girls ordering their drinks in a coffee shop? They like the fru-fru girly coffees, with lots of sugar, calories, and every possible option, extra this, extra that...Aside from taking FIVE-EVER (I just learned this term from my daughter-...
1 comment
Read more