Hanging Out

I’m a bit of a mess today.

Wilted from spending much energy to meet a deadline. Manuscript, submitted last night! I celebrated by ringing a bell. Hooray! Praise the Lord! I’ve been working on it for months, but the last three weeks have been intense. I love the writing process, I hate the deadlines. However, I need deadlines to push me to finish a manuscript. I guess it’s just how I’m put together.

Today I have options. Nothing on the calendar. It’s a pajama day for me, a day to do nothing. Maybe a load of laundry, but basically, I am resting and looking at the leaves on the ground, listening to the river meandering by, cozying up with a dog or my husband.

I’m a Christian, baptized and believing in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. I know I am loved and God’s daughter. I know it, and yet, there have been times in my life when I felt guilty about doing little or nothing on a nice day like today. Being called Lazybones or Daydreamer as a kid might have something to do with that. But now, I have gained a new perspective. That’s what I want to share with you. It’s a hanging-out day for me with God, maybe like a little girl having tea time with her mommy or a little boy sitting on the river bank with his daddy, saying little.

For this attitude and permission, I thank A.W. Tozer for his powerful book, In Pursuit of God. I have spent the last ten weeks studying this book with a group of women. The climax of the book, for me, came when I read, “sewing a tent (like Paul) or leading a soul to Christ. . .both are sacraments.” Sewing a tent could be washing dishes or swinging a hammer or digging a hole. Resting in God or working with God (with pure motive) is what makes the act for believers a sacrament. The goal is to be a sacrament in God’s holy temple, God’s holy creation (even in this bent-up world). Motive is everything. This means that residents in nursing homes who are in wheelchairs or bedfast can be sacraments. I love knowing this. It changes everything for me. Everything, for the Glory of God. I am grateful to get this settled inside myself.

Even while doing nothing and spending the day with God, I mess up. Not on purpose, but I say something or think something. Sometimes I think to ask for forgiveness. Sometimes I don’t. Meanwhile, I’m hanging out with my Father.

Photo by Pat Durmon, on River Ridge Road, Norfork, Arkansas. November 2016.