Skip to main content

Monday, Monday....

It's Monday, again, and in the afterglow of a weekend of wonderful worship and refreshing family fun, we plunge back into the doldrums of daily duties with revived enthusiasm. Then it hits--the feeling of dread, restlessness, irrelevance. However delightful and favorable your workplace may be, you're probably feeling it today--like a kid stomping back to school after a four-day weekend, sullen-faced, heavy-hearted, and distracted. Mom used to call it the "don't want-to's."

Yes, that's it--don't want to be here, don't want to do this---"can't adult today," as my daughter, working her way through college, now says. The expression has come full circle, evolving into Millineal-ese, but the feeling equally familiar to us all.

We all occasionally have a sense of not belonging--or at least, not belonging here, and it has little to do with situational discontent, especially after a break from your usual rolling mountain of duties. The fact is, whenever we come up for air, so to speak, we become aware of who we really are--and it's not defined by what we do for a living. The feeling emerges, through the layers of obligations, purposes, challenges, goals, and everything else we wrap around ourselves to make ourselves relevant to the world around us, and bubbles up like a volcano through so many layers of hardened earth and rock, then bursts out with a great big -- "I don't belong here!"

You're right. We don't. We were made for something more than punching a clock, chauffering kids to practice, running errands, building bridges or spaceships....Whatever you do, it's important, but it's secondary to who you really are--your soul. It was made for worship, and that need to worship goes unsatisfied, grows restless and discontent, without being fulfilled. It's a thirst and a hunger that nothing else can satisfy, except time with the one who made you, who knows you, and who designed your purpose. We will never really "fit in" with the world around us, but, with an empty heart and starved spirit, we can't even fit in with ourselves, if that makes sense....

In God's presence is complete joy. Seek Him early today, find Him, and keep Him in your heart as you go about your Monday madness. Wait for Him---to be with you, to lead you, to calm you, to strengthen you for your purpose today. Let God's purpose for your life be your joy, your purpose, your sense of identity, not the whimsical, shifting opinions of the people around you. You DO belong. You belong to Him.

“Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone...”
Psalms 62:5-7 NLT
http://bible.com/116/psa.62.5-7.nlt
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

NEMESIS, TRAPS AND DIGRESSIONS, OH MY!

Let's begin at the beginning. You have challenges. You have issues. You have enemies. All of the above would be true for any of us -- from slacker to slave, from victim to hero -- but there is actually one very small but highly distinguishing characteristic: perspective. Yes, the thing that makes mountains out of molehills--and vice versa--is undoubtedly the key to success or failure, and the common thread through the story of every hero. Something interesting about perspective: it can be found, lost, and regained -- although sometimes elusive, it's always attainable.  Through the next week, we will explore the various things responsible for our lost perspective, and talk about how to get it back. I was about to say that there are three things that generally rob us of our proper perspective, but that would imply that it can be taken from us, by force. The fact is, unfortunately, we sometimes "lose" our perspective as easily as we misplace our keys, cell phone, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sense and Civility

If I had a dollar for every awkward moment precipitated by rudeness among family, friends and colleagues, I would be enjoying a ridiculously lavish retirement on my own island somewhere in the Mediterranean, with a butler, a housekeeper, lady's maid, horses, cars, with tremendous works of philanthropy... In an age dominated by selfishness and self-centeredness, narcissism and nonsense, where celebrities proudly parade all their offenses to decent society, with the reward of awe and imitation, how can we possibly maintain any standard of decorum, even among the educated and supposedly civilized, when we have ever so gradually, but certainly, lowered the bar among Christians? Much like the concept of being "a good Christian," the concept of being a true lady or gentleman has been grossly misconstrued--even reversed. Both have been defined as having a sense of superiority, with a self-assured judgmental outlook, and snobbish demeanor.  In both cases, people--including th...
Post a Comment
Read more