Author: Cheryl Gerou

Sabbath: Choosing to Feast

Cheryl GerouLeave a comment

This week we finish up looking at Sabbath-keeping as I travel on this journey of recalibrating life. The final section of Marva Dawn’s book Keeping the Sabbath Wholly is about choosing to feast. The feasting here is not all about food, instead we seem to be filling up on so much of the goodness of God, feeding on His blessings.

Dawn begins by discussing feeding on the eternal. Preparing for the Sabbath, we ready our hearts to meet our eternal God and we seek Him as we yearn for Him to reveal Himself to us through His Word. Dawn tells us that only “with humility and gratitude can we approach the table of God’s Word to feast there on His eternal love.” Further on she reminds us that only “by His grace has he chosen to reveal himself to us, only by his grace can we understand and believe what his revelation declares.”  We need to come before Him hungering for His truths and revelations seeking to recieve “the manna of His Word.” But we must come in a spirit of rest, ceasing from work, reaching and hungry for Him.

We need to find “spaces of uncluttered silence” in our lives because it is only then that we can attend to the Lord’s voice nudging us forward, or recognizing the peace that He longs to fill us with. Sabbath gives us the perfect space for this.

Recently I found some space for silence, sitting outside on our patio as I took time to enjoy writing in my journal. As I did, I was serenaded by a choir of birds singing loudly in the morning sun. There were so many different sounds, trills and tweets, chirps and cheeps, all together making a beautiful melody. I put my pen down and laid my head back, with my face tilted toward the morning sun, I closed my eyes, and just listened. Oh how sweet it was to hear them praise the Lord. Their song truly did bring my heart peace and I breathed deeply. There I sat feasting on the goodness of my Eternal Creator God.

It is in those times when we are reminded of His promises, His gifts, and His love. We quiet our hearts to  take them in, and in receiving them we thereby find ourselves feasting on the eternal.

Dawn also speaks of feasting on music. I learned to love music from my mom. I grew up in a church with musical liturgies and all the old hymns filled with rich biblical truths. Since then, I moved on to a church that does many more contemporary songs, with beautiful words and melodies, catchy tunes and repetitious phrases, but not as many deep truths.

I hadn’t really missed the old hymns until recently, when I went with Mom to the Sing to Jesus time at her assisted living home. The chaplain led us in a variety of old hymns and shared biblical truths relating to the theme of Lent just prior to Resurrection Sunday. I left there with my heart so full. Phrases from those hymns stayed with me for days, and my heart feasted on them.

Another area we can feast on as we celebrate the Sabbath is that of beauty. Dawn speaks of some special  ways she feasts on beauty, a couple of those being playing her music boxes and savoring the illustrations in various children’s books. She also mentions other possibilities, such as going to a museum, or hiking in a nature park, or just taking time to reflect on the character of God.

Just the other day I went to the grocery store to pick up a sweet treat for my mom and as I walked out I saw colorful displays of blooming garden flowers available for purchase. I stopped right there in the middle of an ordinary day and feasted on the beauty of those flowers.  The ranunculus especially captured my attention. It was not the Sabbath, but yet I enjoyed the Lord’s creation all potted up ready to be brought home. So on the Sabbath, we can take time to take a walk through a garden, or through a woods and see the beauty of God’s creation. Or we can listen to the beauty of children’s laughter at a playground or in our homes.  Or maybe we can enjoy the beauty of the voice of a loved one we haven’t spoken with in a while as we talk with them on the phone.

An obvious area of feasting discussed in this section is that of feasting on food. Dawn suggests saving some favorites to enjoy on the Sabbath. She mentions drinking coffee or tea during the week and saving hot cocoa or a specialty coffee for the Sabbath. Or having your families favorite meal on the Sabbath. It gives all something to look forward to.

Feasting on affection on the Sabbath is the last area I want to highlight. Dawn says,”the intentionality of [the Sabbath] lends itself to a conscious enjoyment of our relationships with and delight in, each other as an outgrowth of our delight in Yahweh.” 

We might take time to enjoy family relationships as we plan for special visits or offering hospitality. Or we may feast on the Lord’s love for us as we choose to be intentional about enjoying the His presence. We can also intentionally enjoy the love and affection of our church community as we attend our weekly worship service. Many times during the week busyness keeps us from really being present with others and showing love or affection. So as we celebrate the Sabbath we can make an effort to give away the love the Lord so generously blesses us with as well as recieve His love from and through others.

We set aside the Sabbath for ceasing, for resting, for embracing, and for feasting. And as we do we are nourished and nurtured, our empty selves are filled to overflowing. We are readied for the coming week. Celebrating the Sabbath is such a blessing, will you choose to set aside some time to celebrate this wondrous gift the Lord has given us?

 

*Photo from Unsplash by Stephanie Crist

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Sabbath: Choosing to Embrace

Cheryl Gerou2 Comments

We have discussed the importance of choosing to cease and to rest as we celebrate the Sabbath. This week we are looking at choosing to embrace.

Dawn discusses a number of different aspects of what we embrace on the Sabbath. She starts with embracing intentionality. In embracing intentionality the emphasis is on the value of taking care of how we do what we do.

When we choose Sabbath-keeping we are choosing to be set apart, deliberately choosing to live our lives in response to God’s graciousness. Our values change, they must, otherwise we would continue choosing to work seven days a week, either at a job or around the house. We would be trusting in our abilities and accomplishments to help us make it through. But in ceasing and resting we see the reality of God’s sovereignty.

We must choose to put Him first, valuing Him above all, and trusting in His love and goodness to meet our needs. We have to stop depending on ourselves and our own resources, and find our all-in-all in the Lord.

Embracing intentionality means living deliberately, learning to be conscious of God’s grace, learning about who God created us to be as His people, and learning how we are to share who He is with others as we bear witness to the world. What choices will really reflect the reality of God’s grace to others? How are our choices leading to the deepening of our relationship with the Lord.

When every day is the same, busy and overwhelming, we often miss the evidence of God’s grace in our days. Keeping the Sabbath gives us a day to embrace the deliberate intentionality of seeing and knowing Him more.

On the Sabbath we can also choose to embrace the values of the Christian community. When we think of values we think of the things we choose as priorities. Our goal as believers is to live to accomplish God’s purposes. This means our priorities are different, or at least they should be different. Unfortunately sometimes they seem indistinguishable.

We can only learn what we as believers should value by looking at what God values. Some of the areas Dawn highlights are those of:

  • “peace-building.”
  • living our lives out of God’s instructions and His authority.
  • choosing to grow in intimacy with other believers as we fellowship together.
  • worship, devotion, and prayer
  • embracing others

We can see each one of these demonstrated in the life of Christ. He is our example as we seek to embrace our Christian community.

Jesus also embraced time instead of space. He didn’t have an agenda, He moved as the Spirit led Him.He wasn’t bound by rules, but rather chose to live out grace and love. He chose to touch lives as he healed, and as He released people from bondage. He looked at individuals and saw their needs and He made Himself available to them. It is too easy for us to get bogged down in “using our time to acquire and accomplish things.” 

Another area of embracing on the Sabbath that Dawn discusses is that of giving instead of requiring. She writes about how society has “turned our major holy days into commercialized holidays, days of ‘gimme’ instead of special times of adoration and worship.”

Even now at Easter we see stores filled with chocolate eggs, marshmallow chicks, furry bunnies, and a rainbow of baskets to collect all of our goodies in. So we get distracted by societies emphasis in getting more when instead as a Christian community we can choose to practice “giving rather than accumulating.” How can you choose to be generous? Who are the needy in your life? Not necessarily needy financially or materially, what about the lonely? Who could you have over for coffee, or stop by to visit? These are all options for ways of embracing giving.

We can choose to touch others lives on the Sabbath also by giving gifts, baking a sweet treat to share, writing a letter, knitting or crocheting something, there are so many possibilities.

Dawn says, “To keep the Sabbath is to focus on the immensity of God’s gifts to us, especially the priceless gift of salvation. We can respond in no other way then to want to give in similar fashion. “Christ’s love compels us…” (2 Cor. 5:14a).

We may also choose to make the Sabbath a day of counting our many God-given blessings; taking time to recognize the goodness of the Lord to us in our lives. But it seems that it is much easier to find reason to grumble and complain.

As Christians we called to share the love of God, and on the Sabbath choose to embrace our calling. In making this choice, we can fully depend on the Lord to equip us to fulfill His purposes. As we seek Him on the Sabbath and bask in His goodness and His love we are filled to overflowing with His grace. And it is by His grace that we are led to live out His purpose embracing His calling.

Lastly, Dawn speaks of embracing wholeness on the Sabbath. Our lives become fragmented and compartmentalized as we are pulled in so many different directions every day of the week. But when we choose to celebrate Sabbath we find God as our center. And “when God is at the center” we are given “the ability to weave together all the bits and pieces of our lives.”

When we choose to embrace wholeness we consider both the wholeness of the Christian community and the wholeness of ourselves as an individual. We think about deepening relationships, about what brings joy to a heart, and we think in terms of how we can learn more about who God is.

I am choosing to embrace intentionality on the Sabbath by taking time to nap or find quiet rest time in the afternoon. I also am intentional about journaling.

I am embracing the values of Christian community by attending my church service and enjoying a time of fellowship following the service. In the past I would go to church and then run off to get to the next thing on my to-do list. I am appreciating my dear church family in new ways for new reasons.
I am slowly learning to embrace time by taking the time to embrace people in their neediness, to really look and see, and listen, and then to respond with Christ-like love. This means slowing down, and being present, and being available. It means setting side my agenda for another.

I am embracing giving as I learn to embrace my calling to be sharing God’s love by following the Spirit’s nudges to encourage and to minister in grace to others. There is overlap in many of these. My ministering in grace may be seeing a special gift and sending it to a sick relative, offering to spend time with a friend who is alone, or shopping for a shut-in.

Finally, as I consider embracing wholeness, it is about keeping the Lord at the center of my life so that my choices emulate God’s love and draw people into deeper intimacy. I am choosing to be real and authentic in sharing about life and God’s truth for me. I am trying to learn to scatter joy like confetti, even if it is only in little ways, a bag of candy, a phone call, or an unexpected card sent in the mail. And in all of life I am learning more about Who God is, because in His goodness He continually draws me back to Himself. He restores me and leads me to wholeness when I am broken and empty. It all cones back to setting aside the time to know the Lord more and find ways to live out His love.

The Sabbath is a time to choose to embrace. Tomorrow is Resurrection Sunday. It is because of the cross, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, that we truly can rest. Apart from what Jesus has done, we have no hope for rest. So as you celebrate Christ’s resurrection remember that Sabbath is for ceasing, resting, and embracing. Next week we will look at choosing to feast.

I wish you a blessed Easter.

 

Sabbath: Choosing to Rest

Cheryl Gerou11 Comments

This month’s blog post topic’s center around Sabbath–keeping. Last week we started off by looking at how we can choose to cease on the Sabbath. You can find that here: Sabbath: Choosing to Cease. This week we’re looking at the various aspects of choosing to rest as discussed in Keeping the Sabbath Wholly by Marva J. Dawn.

Dawn discusses spiritual rest, emotional rest, intellectual rest, and social rest in this particular section of her book. I honestly never considered rest in so many different ways prior to reading these chapters.

Dawn begins by sharing about spiritual rest which seems foundational to the others. She says, “When we cease striving to be God we learn a whole new kind of contentment, the delight of the presence of God in our present circumstances. When we give up our silly rebellion against God’s purposes, we discover that he provides the security for which we were searching.”

This takes me right back to: “abandoning control” to God, ceasing to strive and learning to trust Him with whatever may happen. I share more about abandoning control in this post, Relinquishing Control and Finding Peace. Giving up “our silly rebellion against God’s purposes” is key, rest and rebellion cannot co-exist. His purposes are so much bigger than what we can even wrap our brains around. Yet, this is probably my biggest area of struggle when I consider choosing to find rest.

Biblical Sabbath is all about accepting the Sovereignty of God. We find the bedrock for our trust in knowing that He has it all under control and can take care of everything. I totally get that, but knowing His love seems equally as important for me. I feel much more secure in finding rest as I grow in knowing both His sovereignty and His love.

Dawn says “The greatest result of Sabbath resting is the opportunity to know the presence of God, no matter what our circumstances might be.” It is nearly impossible to know His presence in our rushing and striving because our focus is on accomplishing. But when we choose Sabbath rest our focus changes and we can look for Him in our moments.

As Dawn moves on to discuss choosing physical rest in Sabbath keeping, one of her most important statements is this: “The Sabbath is never a day to allow ourselves to be pushed (especially by our own false guilt or by other’s expectations) into activity of any kind.” It is so easy to be pressured into fulfilling other’s expectations or letting our own sense of guilt force us into doing something. Dawn says that if she senses this happening to her, she stops and puts the task aside for another day. The task can be done on the Sabbath, but has to come out of a different frame of mind. Her example was that of writing letters. She felt like she “should” write and when she recognized that feeling of “should” she chose not to write them on that Sabbath day. But the next Sabbath Day she did write them from a different mindset.

This section on choosing to rest also brought up God’s command regarding ceasing from work on the Sabbath (Leviticus 23:3). This means that planning ahead is necessary so that you really do have time to rest. This may mean spacing out your work differently during the week or rearranging your schedule. We have to choose to trade in our striving, hour after hour, for times to rejuvenate our bodies in restful ways.

Dawn shares that it has actually been scientifically proven through studies that our body’s need this kind of Sabbath rest every seven days in order to get revived from the strain of the other six days. A lot of different physical and mental symptoms can show up when we live with a continuous lack of rest in our lives.

I have noticed the importance of rest just recently in my own body. My neck and shoulders have been extremely tense and sore from stress, but as I have taken time to get extra rest I am not hurting as much. My body was screaming for the peace and quiet and sleep, and I hadn’t been listening.

When explaining the importance of emotional rest Dawn highlights how the Lord cared for Elijah in 1 Kings 19 after his dealings with Queen Jezebel. This story makes it very obvious that the Lord cares about our physical and emotional needs. It is one of my favorite stories because it so beautiful shares the Lord’s awareness of exactly what we need. 

As we choose to set apart the Sabbath and grow in deeper intimacy with the Lord we will find that we experience emotional healing also. I have found this to be true even as I regularly set aside a portion of time to be in God’s Word, the Lord leads me to new understanding of where I am at and His wisdom enlightens me. I am given tools to help me with the struggles I am dealing with, those that often so deeply affect my emotions. Sometimes it is the Lord Himself speaking to my heart impressing something on me. At other times He allows others to share and I will find healing in their words. Sabbath rest allows time for deepening both our relationship with the Lord and with others, and both are very beneficial to emotional rest.

Dawn explains, “…letting God be God in our lives gives us the freedom to deal constructively with our emotions, to accept them and listen to them but not be controlled by them.” Giving my emotions to the Lord as I go through my day is extremely helpful. Telling Him how I feel about this or that and letting Him be at work in it, gives my heart and mind peace to rest in. So it seems especially important to remember how being controlling can affect our emotions (I know, I have experienced those feelings more often than I care to admit,) But, again, it goes back to recognizing God’s sovereignty in situations and letting that be what controls my heart and mind rather than reacting out of my emotions.

The Sabbath also can give us time to explore our deep feelings and desires that have been buried under busyness and striving. We can take time in our resting to talk with the Lord about all that has been lost in the rush of the last six days. What deep feelings have we suppressed? What important desires have we set aside? The Lord cares and He wants to hear about them.

An important part of each day for me is journaling but often my time to journal is limited due to other demands. I have found that on the Sabbath I will spend an extended period of time journaling my thoughts, feelings, dreams, and desires. This is a very special time to me and I always come away refreshed.

Dawn states, “Emotional rest is especially induced by whatever calls for creativity and spontaneity.”  I have found, also, how much I enjoy just playing with watercolors. It is relaxing as well as being a creative outlet. My painting with watercolors tells a story in itself by the colors I use and the strokes of the brush. My emotions are vividly splashed across the paper.

Dawn shares about intellectual rest in terms of even rethinking the way we read the newspaper or hear the news on the Sabbath. She suggests allowing our knowledge of God’s sovereignty to reframe our thinking as we listen or read. The Sabbath gives our minds time to rest from fear and worry. We can free our minds to focus instead on how we can glorify the Lord.

We can get so caught up in fear and worry, mulling things over in our minds as we busily try to check things off of our to-do lists. But on the Sabbath, we set aside the striving and we can choose to rest our minds, again choosing to use those moments to give praise to the Lord.

Dawn mentions that she enjoys reading fairy tales as part of her Sabbath rest. it is all about finding aids to intellectual rest that leads our thinking down creative paths. We choose to use our brain in a more positive and restful way because on normal days our minds are overloaded with busyness. And we definitely need this renewing!

As I read many of these suggestion I realized that they could be carried over into everyday life even to give us a little Sabbath rest in each day. and that is something I want to do. I want to practice recognizing the Lord’s presence more and choose to rest in His Sovereignty more consistently. Sabbath day is a day to extend these practices throughout the day for greater rest.

The final aspect of rest I want to share from this book is that of social rest. Dawn suggests that, “Sabbath keeping fosters…an increase in our gentleness and tenderness, a non-aggressive stance towards others. The ability to dismantle our own power.”

She mentions that usually we only hear about “social unrest.” Social rest is just the opposite. She says that when our hearts and minds are nurtured by the Lord’s presence, we grow in tenderness and gentleness. It helps us to look at others differently. Life becomes less about power and control or aggression and more about living out His love. And that is an important part of how we should live as we celebrate the Sabbath.

Choosing to rest on the Sabbath does not mean sitting idle, staring into space. Often times, I think that this is our biggest fear. But instead we find so many options of ways to choose rest. So many options that I want to take time to try on my days of Sabbath rest. How about you? What ways intrigue for choosing rest on the Sabbath?

Next week’s post will be Sabbath: Choosing to Embrace. I hope you will join me.

 

 

 

Sabbath: Choosing to Cease

Cheryl Gerou12 Comments

A big part of my journey to recalibrate my life is praying about what I need help with. So recently I have been praying that the Lord will help me unwrap the gift of rest in my life. I also have been praying that my thoughts will be controlled with the words of Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.” I desire for my heart to be filled with peace rather than anxiety and overwhelm. And I want that peace to overflow into my life. Sabbath is about finding rest and peace in knowing the Sovereignty of the Lord. How beautifully these prayers fit in with my theme of Sabbath.

This month my Recalibrate Life Read is Keeping the Sabbath Wholly by Marva J. Dawn. She has divided her book into four themes of Sabbath. The themes are Ceasing, Resting, Embracing and Feasting. So I am approaching this month’s blog posts in a little different manner. Rather than sharing on topics and then sharing a response to the book, I am going to use each of the weeks in April to discuss one of these themes. So this week we will begin with the theme of ceasing.

Dawn explains that “the name Sabbath comes originally from the Hebrew verb ‘Shabbat’ which means primarily ‘to cease or desist’.”  Sabbath gives us freedom as we choose to cease from some things to be present and choose ways to honor the Lord.

Ceasing from work is the first area discussed in this theme. This made me think back to a few years ago when my husband and I had two huge vegetable gardens. Sunday afternoons we would often be out there weeding and watering for anywhere from two to four hours. It was around this time that Sabbath rest began to  interest to me. And at first I really struggled with going out to the garden. wasn’t that work? And isn’t it wrong to work on the Sabbath? Well, to some gardening may be work, but I found that digging in the dirt removing weeds, and standing in the rows, feeling the sun on my face, as I watered was actually relaxing. It was a refreshing time that I would spend in giving praise to the Lord or going through the alphabet praying for people. Or other times I would just spend the time talking with the Lord about whatever occupied my mind. People have differing views on what ceasing from work is to mean for us. I think it is about the attitude of the heart. There in the garden I was fully present with the Lord as I completed these tasks that actually relaxed me. I wasn’t striving.

Dawn discusses the importance of ceasing from productivity and accomplishment. She explains that when we’re not under the compulsion to be productive, we have time to really be present with others, and then get to know more of who they are. When we are so busy trying to accomplish things we lose sight of relationship and are just fixed on the goal. Ceasing from productivity on the Sabbath gives us opportunity to be with those we love and enjoy their company. You can enjoy slow-porch-conversations over lemonade, or a good movie as you munch popcorn or sip hot cocoa. It’s about being together. Recognizing the gifts the Lord has given you in those He has placed in your life.

I am enjoying being less productive as I choose to not cook a big dinner on Sundays. Instead, when I plan out my meals for the week, I make sure that I have something simple I can heat up on that day that way I am not spending the day in the kitchen. My husband and I often decide to spend part of the afternoon taking a nap or enjoying movie together. The quietness of the afternoon is refreshing and enjoyable.

Another area that Dawn says to cease from is the area of anxiety, worry and tension. Having too much to do is a huge factor in the level of stress and anxiety we experience. Dawn explains that she gets her house ready for “Queen Sabbath,” as she calls it, by putting away projects the night before. She removes any worry from her mind by keeping a running list of concerns and she sets these aside. She states, “The sabbath is not a running away from problems but the opportunity to receive grace to face them.”  We create space to know God is in control, and to be aware of His presence. Setting our minds on things above gives us a new perspective.

Dawn suggests that we practice thanksgiving as a way to cease worrying. Sabbath is about remembering who God is and what He has done for us. When we are aware of those things we can cease to be God and naturally are led to give thanks.

I don’t think that many times we are even aware of how often we try to be God in our own lives. Or maybe that is just me. Just the other day I was praying for the Lord to be at work in a situation where we needed to hear from someone in order to move forward with a decision regarding an important project. Not hearing from this person was keeping me from being able to plan my week out, so I gave this dilemma to the Lord. But only a few moments later I found myself trying to figure it all out. I even suggested to my husband that I text the guy to see if he could give me a time line. My husband responded negatively to my suggestion saying that the man would call when he was ready. I felt frustrated and then remembered I had just given it to the Lord. There I was trying to control and manipulate things, not letting God be God. Old habits die hard.

Dawn says “…God will provide for his people, they don’t have to struggle to work things out for themselves.” Obviously, learning not to strive or figure it all out is a lesson I am still learning.

The last three areas of ceasing that Dawn discusses are that of ceasing from “possessiveness“, “enculturation” and from “humdrum and meaninglessness.”

The idea of possessiveness is related to stewardship.  Stewardship reminds us of the importance of using the gifts the Lord has given us for service to Him. In her own life, Dawn chooses to make Sabbath a day to give things away–gifting others. She enjoys having dinner parties “especially for those who aren’t able to invite [her] back.” She refrains from shopping or anything that requires buying or selling on the Sabbath. So this means planning ahead to have the necessary food for dinner preparation. Sharing a meal with others is a great way to share God’s love and His gifts to us.

The point of ceasing from enculturation that stood out to me most in this book is that of setting “the Christian community apart as an alternative society to the surrounding culture.” When we choose to cease from things that are typical to our culture it causes people to stop and look, and maybe to ask why? How can we be holy and set apart, honoring the Lord on Sabbath? This is something we do not do to draw attention to ourselves but to draw attention the Lord’s impact on our lives.

Finally, Dawn explains that life can become “humdrum” in the rat-race of life. Every day begins to be the same. It is when we choose to honor the Sabbath that we realize we have something very special to look forward to. In time, we come to understand that in keeping the Sabbath that “all days derive their meaning from the Sabbath.” We recognize God as the Giver of all gifts and the One and Only Sovereign God over our lives.

These chapters on ceasing gave me much to think about. I am slowly finding my own special rhythm to six days of busyness and work, and one day of rest. I am making choices regarding what I need to cease from and how I must plan for that in my other six days. Planning for Sabbath is another way that helps you remember God. You choose deliberately and intentionally to think of ways to honor God, as well as ways to love others.

Next week our theme in this series on Sabbath will be Resting. Resting is something I am learning about for all of life. But “to rest” is actually the second meaning of the Hebrew verb “Shabbat.” We will be looking at a variety of aspects of rest which Dawn highlights in the second section of her book. I hope you will join me as we together learn more about keeping the Sabbath.

 

*Featured photo taken by Stephanie Crist found on Unsplash.

My Response to GodSpace: Time for Peace in the Rhythms of Life

Cheryl Gerou5 Comments

My recalibrate life read for March was GodSpace: Time for Peace in the Rhythms of Life, by Christine Sine, M.D.

The focus of this book is to invite its readers to “make space for God” and “discover a Christlike pace that liberates us from the frenzy of a culture enslaved by time.”

She begins the book by leading the reader to see the problem of chaotic busyness in life and how it “constantly leaves us gasping for breath.” She helps us to recognize that God desires rest for both our bodies and our souls.

As Christians our lives should look different, we should be living with different priorities. Our life rhythm should be fulfilling, yet it seems that many believers live a life of frustration in the same kind of rat-race as everyone else.

Sine encourages her readers to be intentional about putting forth effort to “develop spiritual practices that put our faith and its rhythms at the center of all we are and do.”  This immediately caught my attention, as I know that I have not lived this way. I have only started to make a few changes in this direction as I work to recalibrate my life this year.  She says that “we need spiritual rituals to anchor our lives and give them meaning.”

I initially cringed at the word “rituals” because I usually equate a ritual as a go-through-the motions activity that lacks whole-heartedness. But I came to a new understanding, and am beginning to look at this word a little differently. I see rituals now more like “pillars” in our days, pillars that lead us back into the doorway of deeper relationship with the Lord.

When we set in place a plan of spiritual rhythm and set aside specific times throughout our days to find our way back to Him in the busyness of our day, we find there the reality of His loving-presence.

These “pillars” can look different in each of our lives. It may be times of short prayers, like breath prayers, or meditating on a section of Scripture at various times during the day. Or maybe you choose a different attribute of the Lord to concentrate on each day at lunchtime. It could be setting aside time for a weekly prayer-walk or planning for Sabbath rest, even just a few hours during the week. It may mean that you attend an annual spiritual conference or plan for quarterly personal prayer retreats. There are so many options! Sine suggests many different ideas.

Most importantly, you must decide what nourishes your heart and feeds your soul as it draws you into deeper intimacy with the Lord. What quiets the chaos that races through your mind? What brings you back to center?

Sine explains that although we recognize our need for prayer and Scripture reading in our lives, it seems that in the midst of our busyness these spiritual practices that are the first things we let go of. Life begins to feel out-of-control and we try to gain control by cutting back on a few things. Unfortunately, we cut back on the ones that are most necessary.

So, it comes down to, once again, this matter of being intentional. You start out by choosing to set aside the time and make some important choices of spritual practices. I am trying to do this, and it takes time to see what fits. I am starting out by finding a daily/weekly spiritual rhythm. My quiet time has been a set part of that rhythm, but I want more “pillars” in my day. Right now some of my “pillars” are as follows:

  • I am writing a breath prayer out of my Scripture reading to take with me through the day. And I am trying to remember to say it at times when I feel anxiety building. It takes repeated practice to make that happen, I often forget, but it is definitely a pillar I want in place.
  • I am choosing one to three Psalms to pray each day. My goal is one for morning, one for noon and one in the evening, but I am not there yet. I am getting one or two in on some days. But I know that benefits of praying Scripture and I love the Psalms, so it is something I will continue  to work at.
  • I am working through the book Whispers of Rest by Bonnie Gray. She has a beautiful way of leading you into the presence of the Lord through her writing. It is all about learning to rest in His love (something I definitely need and want to do). During this time, I respond to questions, journal, and pray. She has a one-word theme for each day to help draw you into the Lord’s presence.

The practices I have chosen are not direct suggestions from GodSpace, but I am seeking to find what works for me. I need practices, or “pillars” as I choose to call them, that invite me into God’s presence. The ideas that you choose for your own spiritual rhythm can be directly from Sine’s suggestions (if you choose to read her book), or they can be different ones you find and decide on. It is not about the “what” you use. The importance of all of this is being drawn back to the Lord and deepening the intimacy of your relationship with Him.

So, I have to admit, I have not read all of Sine’s book yet. I still have a few chapters to read, and I am working through the questions at the end of each chapter as I go. The questions are thought-provoking, they are helping me to take a closer look at where I have been and where I want to go in my walk with the Lord.

In the past I probably would have rushed through the book in order to say that I am finished in time to write this post, but finishing the book isn’t my goal, living a recalibrated life is. Seeking to know the Lord’s presence more in my day, being intentional about, both, remembering to breathe deeply and to have slow feet; those are some of my goals in this process. This journey will be one of trial-and-error as I try different practices and see if they are successful in helping me meet my goals.

Sabbath rest is another one of the spiritual rhythms Sine discusses in her book. It is a practice I want to learn to live, and I have been choosing certain practices of Sabbath that work in my life. Next month’s blog posts will center around the subjects of Sabbath-keeping and Sabbath rest. I hope you will continue this journey of recalibrating life next week as we delve into that.

The Diligent Intentionality of Slow Feet

Cheryl Gerou21 Comments

I had coffee with a dear friend a couple of days ago and we shared about our walks with the Lord. We both discussed specific areas where we wanted to see growth, especially in recognizing His presence through the day and in being more attentive to the Holy Spirit’s nudges. Jan Johnson in Abundant Simplicity says, “Simplicity with time requires the diligent intentionality of creating enough space that I may say yes to God about treasuring God and loving people.”

Just before meeting my friend I had to stop at my church. This was an extra trip made necessary because I accidentally picked up a plastic bag that I thought was mine and did not realize my mistake until I got home. The extra trip had me agitated, my plan for the day already had too many things to do. On my drive there I told the Lord I was frustrated because it seems no matter how hard I try not to be busy, my time always shrinks because of extra things to do. And then I told Satan that my God is not a God of chaos but One of peace. I spoke out loudly against my busyness.

When I got to church my pastor greeted me and asked me how I was. I told him I was overwhelmed even though my life is quieter. My mind keeps racing with a never-ending list of things to do. He said one word, “focus,” and spoke of the importance of being present to what I am doing in the moment. I left church feeling settled, our conversation brought me back to Johnson’s words regarding the “…diligent intentionality of creating enough space…”

I have a lot I want to get done, but I can choose how I go about it. I can either race from one thing to another or I can slow down and be present focusing on one thing at a time. I am working at learning to focus at one thing at a time, but am obviously still struggling with it. Focus.

In Abundant Simplicity, Johnson suggests doing a “heart exam” asking yourself, “[what’s] running me?” Such a good question. Often the things that keep me racing through my day feeling overwhelmed and frustrated come down to my need to people please and to earn love. And I have mentioned that I realize I don’t get what I need from these measures, but I seem to be stuck in a habit of living this way. It is a bad habit that I am trying hard to change.

Johnson also suggest checking with the Lord about what He is calling us to do, with the emphasis being on loving Him and letting His love for me overflow to others. This definitely means a change in focus for me. Instead of focusing on my agenda, checking off the items to do, it means a constant checking in with God. How am I living out love in what I am doing? And it is an excellent reminder to help me really abide.

A few years ago I was at a women’s retreat. One afternoon we had a couple of hours of free time, so I decided to take a walk by the beach. There were lots of rock, and I love rocks! I am always trying to find one with special significance for the moment. So as I walked along this rocky path I talked with the Lord about what He wanted me to do, how I should move forward in life living out my mission. I also prayed that He would give me a special rock. I listened as I hunted. He seemed to tell me to have “slow feet.” I wrote this in my little notebook along with other snippets from the Spirit’s lead. I picked up a small rock that satisfied my desire and headed back to the retreat center. As I continued to walk there along the side of the path there was a rock that caught my attention, not because I was hunting but because it was the rock the Lord had for me. It is in the perfect shape of a foot (see featured image). So incredibly amazing is our God!

Proverbs 19:2 says, “One who moves too hurriedly misses the way.” The Lord wants me to have slow feet so that I don’t miss the way. He wants me to walk with diligent intentionality. I have circled back to those words “slow feet” often in the past few years. But it seems I always get caught up in the hurry of life. This time I am choosing diligent intentionality for the longterm future. It will definitely take focus!

Johnson suggests the importance of having margin in our days. She uses the example of Jesus. Jesus was constantly interrupted, and He allowed those interruptions to become times of blessing others. He made Himself available to the needs of others. He didn’t grumble that He had too much to do when someone begged to be healed or asked Him to meet a different need.

Johnson suggests that we need margin in our days. Time to breathe in between activities. Time for reflection and prayer. She says, “[a] life of sabbath, pauses, and margin creates a stillness inside us that infuses each thought and conversation.” We need “whitespace” both in our lives and on our calendars. Making this happen may require that we set some boundaries. Johnson defines a boundary as “a practical statement of intentionality.” 

I am realizing, especially in my people pleasing, that I need to set boundaries. First, asking myself why I am saying “yes” to this as I consider it in my mind. Then, also making sure that I do not answer in a hurry, but instead taking time to prayerfully think about it. What will it require of me and my time? What will I have to give up in order to do it?

Just this morning I saw an opportunity online to learn Hebrew, and I thought about how much I would like to do it, I went to the page to sign up and I stopped. What am I doing? I had to remind myself that I cannot do everything. I can’t be in this writing group, and learn how to quilt with this group, and learn Hebrew online and keep adding more and more things. I closed the page that offered the class, and although, I’ll admit, I felt disappointed because it is something I would like to do, I realized cannot do it right now. It was acting on impulse, not walking with slow feet, not walking with diligent intentionality.

I am choosing to recalibrate my life with the diligent intentionality of slow feet. I will be sharing more of this process in future blogs. It is a process that takes time to learn, but I am determined to seek His way.

How about you, how are you being diligently intentional with your time?

 

 

Intentional Space for God’s Grace in Your Words

Cheryl Gerou5 Comments

Last week I shared about Living Intentionally or on Autopilot .  I want to choose to live intentionally in all of life.  In Simple Abundance, Jan Johnson devotes a chapter to talking about simplifying the way we speak; how much we talk, our motives for saying what we do, and being intentional in our words. The experiments suggested in this chapter are ones that require great intentionality. This one chapter taught me so much, not easy lessons, but very important ones. Johnson gave me questions, regarding my words, that I repeatedly ask myself throughout my days now.

Johnson says, “Simplicity of speech flows from a heart that has bonded with the heart of Jesus, compassionate and truthful, loving and good.” This statement sets the tone for what I want to share with you today. Our speech, what we say, and how we say it, has a huge impact on those who hear us.

When our tongues are on autopilot the flow of our words is often left unchecked. We may find ourselves exaggerating to gain self-importance, using words to manipulate and to get our way, telling white-lies, or even raising our voices and repeating ourselves to be heard. Do you see a pattern here? Each of these measures points back to the importance of self. Johnson says that simplicity of speech is about “[words] that are few in number but deep in fullness” these words “rise up from a heart that has examined and distilled its motives and given up trying to push itself forward or win over others.”
I am intrigued by her use of the word “distilled.” Distillation is used with water to remove the impurities by boiling the liquid. Distilling my motives means putting a fire under them to separate out the impurities in them as well. This is such an important process in being intentional. Johnson mentions in this chapter that she began to ask herself why she was talking. When my tongue is on autopilot it just goes on and on and I think very little of my motives. I have decided that her idea may be a beneficial practice and I have started asking myself “why am I talking?” Many times I cannot come up with a good reason.

Ephesians 4:29 tells us that the talk that “comes out of [our] mouths” should be “only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Are my words helping to build others up according to their needs? Are my words really benefiting the one who is listening? Maybe the distilling process would leave me with words that have these effects.
“[Communication] doesn’t work if our goal is to express ourselves rather that create space for God’s grace to flow.”

I am afraid all too often my communications are more about me getting my point across than creating space for God’s grace to flow. What about you? I need to learn to create space for God’s grace to flow. Johnson tells how she chose to experiment with the practice of not giving her opinion unless she was asked for it. I tried that and it really was a struggle. It seems that my mind is always racing ahead thinking about what I want to say rather than listening to what is being said. But the occasions for my opinion to be asked for, those were definitely rare. I am not sure that I ever realized that before.

Johnson suggests that “[instead] of thinking of what we want to say, we work at silencing our thoughts and [become] fully present to the other person.” It is such an intentional practice to focus fully on what the other person is sharing. This means silencing the constant inner-chatter and just listening. It is not easy to do. Reality is that we often just want to be heard more than we want to listen. Or at least that seems to be what happens with me.

Proverbs 10:19 explains, “Sin is not ended by multiplying words but the prudent hold their tongues.”

So, as I learn a few of the practices shared in this chapter on the simplicity of speech, I realize I must work to hold my tongue. I must learn to listen more, and I must learn to create space for God’s grace to flow. This was an amazing chapter and I have only shared a few of the ideas she offered. I have shared the ones that I am trying to practice. I know I will go back to this chapter again and again, to learn to practice others, as I am now very aware of my tongue so often on autopilot.

Is simplicity in speech an area you desire to be intentional with?

Talk to the Lord and seek His directions, ask Him how you can create space for His grace to flow.

Living Intentionally or on Autopilot

Cheryl Gerou9 Comments

Psalm 86:11 “Teach me your way O LORD and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.”

How would you describe your life — are you living intentionally or are you running through life on autopilot?

I have been working my way through the book “He Restores My Soul” by Jennifer Kennedy Dean. This past week focused on having a steadfast heart. She talked about setting our minds on things above (Colossians 3:2). A steadfast heart is an undivided heart. It is a heart with deliberate and intentionally focused on God and His Word.

In Jan Johnson’s book Abundant Simplicity, she states, “We allow purity of heart to grow by willing one thing only –an ever-expanding life with God.“ Our falling in love with God should be what decides everything in our lives. Johnson goes on to say that “[the] single-minded person does the next single thing that is needed in order to focus on God instead of giving into the automatic response of the past. To treasure God is to have a single-focused life (Matthew 6:19-23).”

Living in simplicity is all about focus, and as a Christian it is about focusing on God. My life to this point mostly would not be described by the word “simplicity.” I am sure busy, overwhelming, exhausting, and distracted are words that describe my life much more accurately. But on the road to recalibrating my life I am seeking simplicity in all of it. And in order to get there it will much more about being intentional, rather than living on autopilot.

So, just how do they look different? I think autopilot is all about doing what you feel you need to do, or what you know needs to be done. And sometimes that means running scattered as you put out fires. When we lack intentionality Johnson says we “[scatter] our time and energy among things that don’t fit with what we really want.“ And in doing so we live in frustration. Johnson attributes our frustration to not responding to God’s longing within us. In my last post I shared about how I was Learning to Long for God.

I have felt like I have lived on autopilot, racing through life with an endless to-do list and my pencil to check things off. And for the most part, without a thought about my longings or God’s longings. I only know I got to the end of most every day feeling very frustrated. I guess I always attributed that to not accomplishing everything on my list of to-do’s. But I am realizing it as more about my divided heart living with unsatisfied longings. This left me feeling discontent and restless. It always felt like there should be more. But who could fit one more thing into the day?

My endless to-do list kept me so busy that I had no time to listen to God or to the longings of my heart. But the discipline of simplicity gives us an invitation to “lay aside every weight that hinders us” (Hebrews 12:1). Sometimes the things we need to lay aside may be “good things” but they are things that lead us to be distracted and keep us from being focused. Whereas living intentionally, Johnson explains, “means replacing autopilot by living “deliberately” as Henry David Thoreau called it.”

When we choose simplicity and live with intentionality we have to take time to do some re-evaluating. I think the first step in this is taking time to soul-search deep within to better understand our longings. And from there we seek the Lord to help us learn how are longings lead us back to Him. We have to take time to hear Him speak into our hearts and lives.

Then once we have taken the time to allow our longings to lead us back to God, we can begin to choose deliberateness in life, and we can choose what we want to be intentional about. Those choices become our focus. We stop running in twenty different directions and choose a few things.

I look at our home and see closets filled with various projects left undone. Books fill my bookshelves, many I began reading and never finished. It seems life on autopilot follows any whim. But recalibrating my life now means choosing intentionality. So I am being deliberate about what fills my home, my mind, my calendar, and all of life. My longings, the ones I followed back to God’s heart lead me. I have chosen a few important points of focus for my life right now.

1- Loving my husband and those closes to my heart with the love the Lord lavishes on me.

What this means for me is that I deliberately choose what demonstrates that love, and as I do I feel the Lord feeding and satisfying my love-hunger. The Lord is love, yet I have consistently tried to earn love from people in this world by striving and manipulating and sad to say, it has mostly left me empty. So my longing for love leads me to the only One Who can satisfy my heart with His love. And He leads me in learning how to love others.

2– Writing (blogposts and hopefully, a book.)

I have loved to journal and write from little on. But again writing can become another place to strive– a place to earn accolades. And so when I take the longing of writing to the Lord it becomes about sharing His truth. I see that what so often turns into pressure to grow an audience or complete a book or just write more to say I did. But now it is no longer about those things. I am finding joy in touching one heart at a time with God-truths as He grows faith in me and helps me to know Him more and more. It goes back to letting the Spirit nudge my heart with a verse or a word that prompts a post or a chapter. It’s about learning of Him and His love and sharing that. What feeds my writing is being deliberate and intentional in spending time with Him and in His Word.

3– Making a simple life by simplifying my home.

Clutter leads to anxiety and chaos. And seeing closets full and boxes filled with old projects or unnecessary on-a-whim purchases that have gone unused leads me to long for a simpler way. I want to focus on what we need and what is easy to keep clean. I want our home to only hold within its walls things that we love which have meaning and usefulness. Overwhelm and busyness can be created in part from having to constantly organize and clean stuff.

So taking my longings for peace and quiet in life to the Lord has led me to see all I can give away. And, in doing so, it makes room for so much more. No, not more stuff, but more time to enjoy what I have and those I love and the things I want to do. Wanting more, trying to fill the empty hole inside is a sin-sickness that I am taking to the Lord. I can never fill that hole and find contentment on my own. The contentment comes from the One Who satisfies my soul as I seek Him for gifts that really matter.

As I took my surface longings to the Lord, I found that my deeper longings are about being treasured and cherished, listened to and seen, being loved and having community, and about knowing peace and contentment within. Yes, there are definitely outward things I desire but I cannot make them satisfy my deeper longings– only God can. And it is in being intentional and focused on my life in the Lord and His Word that I can grow in my day-to-day life finding joy in abundant simplicity of my own choosing.

I am trying not to live on autopilot anymore, but instead, in this season, I am trying to recalibrate my life by living intentionally. What about you, are you living in autopilot or are you living intentionally?

*Featured image photographed by Paul Varnum on Unsplash.

Learning to Long for God

Cheryl Gerou18 Comments

Contentment, or the lack of it, is really an issue of the heart. In order to really understand our own feelings we need to look at our wants and longings. We cannot be content apart from knowing what we want or long for.

I took a long hard look at my wants and longings when I went through my first Recalibrate Life read, Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton. And I revisited the responses of my heart again as I read Abundant Simplicity by Jan Johnson in February.

One of the questions at the end of the second chapter in Abundant Simplicity is,”How would you like to see your life progressively more organized around God and His eternal life?” This is a question that intrigued me– especially since it came near the end of a chapter about contentment, wants, and longings.

The question took me back to my responses in Sacred Rhythms on my wants and longings. The act of talking with the Lord about my hearts’ desires was very precious, it was a very tender time. I shared about this in my post last month, My Response to Sacred Rhythms. I think this was true because I finally realized that all of my longings come out of a deeper neediness for more of the Lord.

In a way that surprised me, even though I knew this truth as head-knowledge. But the things we want whether it is about money, deeper intimacy in our relationships, feeling more loved, having more or better possessions, or accomplishing certain goals, are all rooted in our hunger for God and His love. I believe our longings are God-given. But, our longings are put in us to draw us to know Him more, to depend on Him more, and to find what we need in Him more.

In looking at my personal longings and seeking to reach for them, I realized that when I am not reaching for the Lord and especially for Him to meet my hearts’ longing, I am on the wrong path. If I am instead pursuing the end product or result for my own glory or others’ acceptance or personal security, I am missing the point.

The Lord delights in meeting our needs and satisfying our hearts’ desires, but if He sees those desires leading us away from Him, He will try to turn our focus back to Him.

So, back to that question, the one that has really tugged at my heart: How would you like to see your life progressively more organized around God and His eternal life?

Simplicity and contentment of heart depend on my focus. If my focus is scattered and I am living distracted, going after all of my desires to fulfill my own longings, the Lord will intervene. He will intervene because that is the wrong path. and He knows that I will not find contentment in the chaos that brings.

When I pursue God and my focus is on my relationship with Him, when it is on pleasing Him, and living for Him and His will, then, that is where I will find the heart of simplicity. And I have found that He will grant me contentment as I recognize Him as my All in All.

So, yes, I may want to grow my blog or finish my manuscript. But what do I do with that longing? My goal is to connect with the Lord in each longing. It is about wanting to bring Him into the longing, for Him to be at work within it and within me. And in that longing, as I prayed, I realized that I want Him to work in me and my life so other lives can be touched by Him through my words. I need to know Him more. I need to see His hand and heart touching my life, so I can share the glory of His wondrous work.

This demonstrates “organizing my life around God and His eternal life.” No matter what the longing is, if my life is to be more organized around God, I have to see that He is always what I want, or Who I want more of, more than anything else.

Our longings can so easily be mixed up with wrong motives. That is why Johnson’s question is so important to explore. We can get so caught up in self and self-sufficiency. We tend to live so unaware of the relationship of our longings and our need for God. It is so very important that we take it all, each of our longings, into His presence.

As I took each of my longings and brought them back to my deep need for the Lord, I sought to see Him as the center of my longings. This process helped me to see the path to simplifying my life. I also came to learn much about my deep-ceded personal fears. Fears of rejection, fear of replacement, fear of not belonging, or of lack of acceptance, fear of being misunderstood, and the fear of not having all I think I need. I discovered lots of fears within my longings. But all of this took me back to seeking God. That is what organizing my life around God is about.

Johnson says, “If we want to want God our next step is to come to terms with our underlying fears. We start where we are. We invite God to work with us on these fears so we can begin drinking God’s living water, God’s own Spirit…”

I know that I want to want God more, I want to love Him with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength, but I continuously fall short. So I must daily look at these inner longings and talk with Him about them. I need to look at my calendar and my planner and see what my life and my schedule really say about what I want. Where am I spending my time? How am I spending my money? Where am I seeking security and acceptance? The proof and truth will shine brightly there.

This isn’t a “one-time-and-done” response regarding how to organize life around God. It is an ongoing check and re-check of our longings and what our lives are says about how we are living them out.

So, I am learning to long more for God in all of life. And it takes time and focus and prayer and soul-searching. I want to live my life longing for God moment-by-moment. This is becoming an important part of learning to recalibrate life here in 2019.

What about you? What are you longing for? Have you looked deeply at your longings and how the Lord is such an important part of your hearts’ cries? Take some of your longings to Him today. He wants to hear about your deep desires.

 

 

*Note the featured image is a photograph by Paul Varnum on Unsplash.

My Response to “Abundant Simplicity”

Cheryl Gerou7 Comments

My recalibrate life read for the month of February has been Abundant Simplicity: Discovering the Unhurried Rhythms of Grace. This was a book I had read a few years ago but I connected with its contents much more this time as I read it.

The phrase that really stood out to me in the first few pages of the book was “The Christian focus of simplicity is to abide in Christ.” I loved that the author geared my focus toward making the Lord my Treasure.

The process of learning the disciplines of simplicity brings us to a couple of very important realizations. First of all, Johnson points out that “[we] don’t yet trust God to help us feel acceptable when we’re not managing what others think of us.” How often do we purposely try to make others like us or think well of us? And secondly, she reminds us that “[it] is not just others who have “the self-serving motives” of “pride, greed and desires to control”. It is so hard to take a long, close, hard look at our own motives.

Self-awareness is very important in our lives as it is the gateway to transformation. As we grow in self-awareness, we can take our thoughtss before the Lord to have Him search out our hearts. He can shine a light within to show us our motives and help us to know the path we should take. When we fail to do self-examination or soul-searching we miss this opportunity to talk it over with the Lord.

I mentioned in my response to Sacred Rhythms that doing the activities of self-examination and discernment were some of my favorite. I have learned a lot about myself through this process. When I take time to look back on my day and week and look at where I recognized the presence of the Lord and where I felt alone, when I take time to think about my attitudes, responses, and reactions, and then talk about all of this with the Lord, I gain new insights about myself.

I have learned about boundaries I need to set with people who push my buttons and bring me to a state of fuming. I have learned how my being available to others and fully present with them truly leads to deeper closeness, bonding, feeling loved, belonging, and acceptance for me. For me, that means putting down the planner, or my tablet, or setting aside my task list, and maybe asking my husband how I can help him, or what he wants or needs. Or maybe it means just being really present in the conversation, not allowing my mind to race on with a million other random thoughts.

I never really realized how all of this was impacting my life. The more I choose to do self-examination, to talk with the Lord about what is going on in my heart and my life, the more I learn to know Him as my Treasure. Because in those moments when I take time with Him to be real, I grow in trusting Him and my relationship with Him grows in intimacy.

One of the chapters discusses contentment with what we have and the importance of resisting the impulse for more. It was interesting to me to learn how our wounds from the past can play into our level of contentment. Later in the book frugality and generosity are further discussed.

Johnson also leads her readers to consider doing a heart exam to help us discover our longings and priorities in life. She says, “Simplicity strips away the things that distract us (sometimes good things), helps us to re-evaluate where our heart is, and provides room for God to speak.” Simplicity is all about being intentional rather than living “on autopilot.”

I once again realized that, all too often, I am trying to just do too many things, I have too many focuses. Narrowing my focus reduces my stress level a great deal. I have learned that choosing to slow down has given me space to hear the Holy Spirit convict my heart of wrong. Being busy all the time, failing to do the soul-searching, often left me unaware because I was barreling through life as a bulldozer. I realize how often I have missed the gentle nudges that could have led me down a better pathway, whether that be a calm response, a space for silence, or the learning of new wisdom.

The disciplines of practicing simplicity of speech, as well as, silence and solitude are discussed. Johnson found that in her practice of simplicity and gentleness of speech, her words “imparted grace” to her hearers. The importance of really thinking about how my words are being used and considering what the motive behind saying them is, became very clear to me. It surprises my how often my words are manipulative, such as trying to get another to do something I want them to do, without actually asking them to do it. I recognized how that annoys me a great deal when I feel manipulated by others, but I had not realized how often I do it. Another point the author made about our speech is that it is most important that the Lord hears all about it, and it is not necessarily important that others hear it. Oh, how often I run to tell others, by phone call, or via text, or email, when I could just turn that worry or concern into a prayer, or when I could turn that joy into a praise.

As I eluded to earlier, both frugality and generosity were discussed, The importance of how we use the gifts the Lord has given us was reiterated. Again the emptiness of our souls is a factor. This emptiness plays a role in our purchasing of items because of a personal need to fill an inner hole. Johnson reminded us to ask ourselves what we want and what we need. Unfortunately, that is not something that I have often done in the past, but it is something I am choosing to do more and more often now. Johnson states that “Practicing frugality involves two changes, limiting what we already own… and limiting what we acquire.” Her goal in this is to have us limit our possessions, so that we have space to treasure the Lord. As well as limiting our purchases so we can “live a generous life rather than a grasping life.”

The chapter that spoke on simplicity with time was one of my favorites. Johnson said, “Simplicity with time requires the diligent intentionality of creating enough space that I may say yes to treasuring God and loving people.” This is an area that I want to work more and more on.

The discussion on the importance of putting “margin” in our days or “serious nothing” in our weeks has led me to rethink my schedule as I continue to recalibrate life, We need the “free in free time.” Johnson gave a list of leisure opportunities and suggested choosing one to try.  I need to be even more intentional about putting “margin” in my days and “serious nothing” in my weeks. I frequently fail to follow through on this even if it is written in my planner.

The bottom line is living simply in all of life, the way we dress, the way we take care of our bodies, and the way we use media.

Johnson says that as we learn to live in simplicity and draw nearer to God we find less reason to worry. That in itself is encouraging as worry can consume so much of our lives.

Each chapter had questions to answer and experiments to try. I completed all of the questions but am still working my way through some of the experiments of simplicity that I want to try. Some of these experiments will be my topics for my next months posts.

This was an excellent read on my journey to recalibrate life. Next month I will be reading GodSpace: Time for Peace in the Rhythms of Life by Christine Sine, M.D. I look forward to sharing my response with you.