You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.
Proverbs 19:21 (LASBNLT - Bible Text)
It is a Tuesday morning. Feet grudgingly hit the floor, and the right shoulder continues to remind that healing is not complete. The fall taken a few weeks ago still has left remnants behind. None the less, there’s a job to be done. It is time to go to North Grove to sell coffee.
I run a coffee truck at a local medical center. Typically, I set it up on Tuesday and leave it until Thursday evening. Makes for an easy day on Thursday, but a slightly cumbered day on Tuesday. I like to have things set up and somewhat out of the way by the time the patients begin arriving at seven.
You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.
On this particular Tuesday, I am tired. A very busy week prior, a not so sabbatical weekend, and a day with campers on Monday made cause for this Tuesday to be, well, almost painful. But, I beat the body, right? Bring it under subjection, right? Get moving, because there is coffee to sell.
Each morning, I bring myself, Bible, journal and coffee (a ginger-cardamom honey latte of late…delish!) to the garden and I sit with HIM. I make an attempt to catch a few quick breaths of life with HIM, greeting the set of hummingbirds that do not seem to mind my presence. I sit for a few minutes, just a few minutes, and then rush off to accomplish the day’s tasks, leaving HIM and the hummingbirds in the garden. Knowing and sensing in my spirit that I need to sit longer. That I need to linger just a bit. That my soul requires a little more oxygen. That I have yet to breathe.
Unbeknownst to me, this Tuesday would present a teachable moment to tractor girl. For upon approaching the trailer to hook it up to leave, I found that all things had been left just as they were at the end of last week’s busy festivities. In layman terms, it was a mess, and quite honestly, no way to get it together by the time required to leave on a Tuesday morning. Tractor girl approached break down, when I heard HIM say, just breathe.
Preacher’s message titled “God’s Presences or God’s Present” and a book gifted to me called Holy Hustle by Crystal Stine is helping me to prepare for harvest. Ironically, this prep is not exercising the work muscles and strength training to carry more goods; it is teaching me how to balance work and rest. Harvest time is a time for much work, but the right work, or work with the right spirit, and it includes rest.
Rest. Ah, yes. What is that? A concept so foreign to me. How can I rest when there is so much to do? Yet, God did it after HE created the Heavens and the Earth. Yes, YHWH rested. Not from weariness, but as a sense of joy and satisfaction from completion of the work. The work was good and maybe the rest allowed HIM to savor in that fact.
As I settled into a day not planned, I reread old journal entries and was amazed at how much I had written, just breathe.
I can see the breathless me. The breathless me running from task to task, yes multi-tasking. Panic mode, anxiety over-shadowing, running aimlessly from project to project, getting nothing accomplished. A life of hurriedness and nothing. HE has also allowed me to see the me full of breath, full of life. Zoe. The life that HE has said I could have abundantly. The breathful me that works and rests.
I start an interesting chapter. A chapter of learning how to work and how to rest. I’ve never been one afraid of work and in my opinion worked well, as “unto the Lord.” It is one of the things my dad passed on to all of his children. We are not afraid of work, in fact we actually enjoy it. I’ve spent most of my working years in manufacturing where that mentality is required. So, the philosophy of work, work, work, is second nature to me. I like to work, and it’s a thing in which I have taken great pride. At all costs, and regardless of what is happening, I worked. If preacher and I were at odds, keep working. If the body was tired or sick, keep working. Rain or shine, snow or sleet keep working. The only thing that ever slightly slowed me down was if the kids were sick; and then I would most likely be on the phone or answering emails.
I am not there. I still struggle with slowing down and smelling the roses. My nature often still wins regarding my philosophy about work and rest. But, HE is still working with me and will finish that which HE has started.
So, my dear friends, I invite you on this journey with me of learning to breathe, of learning to balance work and rest. Take a few minutes today, set the mind to nothing, deeply inhale, exhale through the mouth, and breathe!