Life is not at all a game of accumulating everything you need and maintaining a certain level of happiness, for happiness after all cannot be maintained. Life is a constant flow, of touching and growing and moving on. Life is either experienced or not, in joy and in sadness, in anger and in despair. Those who choose not its sorrows choose not its happiness as well; and those who choose not to live fully choose only to crumble and to die. – www.itakeoffthemask.com
When I was younger, I never thought there would come a time when this bible verse would come true – that there would come a time when no one would be waiting for God anymore. Yet as I observe our times, I realized that the time may soon come to pass when God would be seeking out his people and no one would be looking back. Why so?
1. THE RICH
Because the rich will have bought the idea of positivism to the extreme to the extent that they have learned to focus only on themselves and their needs, excluding everyone else that may get in the way of their perfectly established lives. The rich would have become indifferent, already possessing everything they thought they needed to live their lives to the full.
2. THE POOR
Because the poor would have thought of himself as being unloved, comparing himself to the rich one whom heaven has blessed far beyond the necessities he prayed for. He would have lost his hope or grudgingly accepted his lot. The poor would have grown a rage that consumes all of his soul.
3. THE RELIGIOUS
The remaining people who claim to be religious would have become the self righteous judgmental people who neither understands the poor nor prays for the awakening of the rich. The religious would judge the poor and the rich for their sins, but see not the dust in their own eyes.
There may soon come a time when all these would come to be, when the hearts of people have grown so cold as to forget the most important thing of all… authentic love.
It used to be so easy to rest, back in those days when “recess” was our favorite subject in school, or when Friday was our favorite day of the week because we’d finally have a hard-earned weekend to indulge in a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Yet have you noticed how many people today find no more satisfaction in the simplest activity of all? We get anxious with our vacant hours and we try to fill our days with as much activity as we can just so we can avoid that time when we have nothing to do but be with ourselves.
I recently had colds and it necessitated a leave from work as well as a leave from the many activities I enjoy, including writing. How I prayed that it be over, how I desired to get back to my normal routine. But the body it seems, knows when to go on and when to take a pause, when to wake up, and when to get some time to sleep. It’s the rhythm of life, the ebb and flow, the natural course of nature that keeps everything in balance, and that makes everything fresh and renewed.
But why the unnatural response from many of us? Why the difficulty in surrendering to rest?
1. We’ve lost our ability to wait.
The modern times have provided us with so many tools and gadgets we need that make our life easier. It has enabled us to do things in an INSTANT, in a single click of a button. We do things real FAST!
Rest is waiting. It is downtime, a healing time both for the body and the spirit. We just couldn’t accept the fact that we are not after all as perfect and as powerful as we thought we could be, that we can be on the go 24/7 much as we wanted to.
2. We’ve lost our ability to trust.
Rest and healing is doing nothing necessarily active on our part, but trusting that our body knows what it is doing to repair itself, to grow, maybe even to be better than before. We believe that only our conscious efforts can accomplish something, and if we’re not doing anything therefore, we’re already doomed! We don’t trust anybody, not even our own body when we know we are not consciously in control.
3. We’ve lost our ability to receive.
Our culture has impressed upon us the necessity to give; giving is a concrete sign of being alive, of being of value. When we are not able to give or to do anything productive, we quickly lose our self esteem. Our self worth is so connected in doing what we do, that when we’re unable to do anything, we feel empty and worthless inside.
We do not realize that receiving is also an integral part of being. Receiving is actively cooperating to the one healing us, actively acknowledging that we are worthy of help, of being assisted in times when we couldn’t help ourselves. Receiving is honoring ourselves as being worthy of notice and honoring others as being able to endow upon us something that is an important part of themselves. Receiving, like giving, is being able to share and be a channel of the flow of life.
I’ve learned that even times of sickness and unproductiveness can teach us something. I’ve learned that in times like that, it’s quite okey to wait, to trust the way of life, and to receive healing from the God who never abandons us whether we’re living our lives energetically, or whether we’re merely trying to while away our time sneezing and teary eyed in the comfort of our cozy beds.
Grief is a blanket
I have learned to love
Though I must admit,
it used to be so rough
I could hardly bear touching it.
Grief is a blanket
I have learned to love,
Though I must admit
that the mere thought of it
caused my tears to fall.
And I gave it all
just to get rid of it,
’cause it would rub against my skin,
and I’d lay down
with wounds all over me.
But grief is a blanket
I have learned to love…
It protected me when I felt cold,
and O, how I felt so cold!
I’d rather be scratched by its edges,
I’d rather bear its heavy burden,
than to lay down empty and heartless,
unable to feel the tears
flowing from my eyes.
Grief is rough
and grief is heavy,
but it’s something I’d carry
to cover me with warmth.
Jocelyn Soriano wrote the books In Your Hour of Grief and Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief.
Surrender is a mighty powerful word.
Sometimes we wonder why God had to wait until we’re tired and worn out, until we’ve finally given up before He gives us what we want.
And the answer is that we have made Him wait that long before we allowed Him to carry on His work and give us what it is we’ve been praying for.
Let us repent therefore.
Repent as in the word “metanoia” which means “a change of mind”.
From doing things our own way, let us trust and cooperate with the Spirit
so we may live the full life Jesus has promised us all!