Promoting thoughtfulness
Well, we took a little break there. After I got to the end of Romans 8 I was like, "What's next?" And then I waited a while.
While I waited, a few interesting things happened.
First of all, my prayer life - which I've been fanning into flame all year - finally ignited. Don't ask me why, I have no idea what set it off. Something just went to a whole new level, can't really explain it. Not a higher level, a deeper level. More faith. More patience. More steadfastness - not striving after some kind of "result" anymore, not wishing something would "happen." Just plain old more desire to talk to God, to tell him what's happening inside. God shows up every time. How can I resist that?
Second, probably through that prayer fire, God unveiled a massive blind spot to me - gave me insight into a strategy the enemy has been using against my heart for a really long time. I've been watching that, not only through prayer, but also in my day-to-day. Just looking for it everywhere, and rejecting the enemy's schemes against me, and seeing victory at deeper levels.
Third, a ministry door opened that has been closed for almost a decade now, and I've been preparing for some work that I've been asking God to let me do for a really long time. I feel like I'm suiting up and it feels really good.
In the midst of all this unexpected spiritual activity, I honestly haven't been writing. Which is really weird for me, because writing and spiritual activity are, for me, very tightly linked. But I've felt a lot more inclined to listen, hope, dream, and imagine. Turns out spiritual activity isn't always a thing you do.
That's why you haven't read anything here on the Desire Line blog for a while.
But I'm back. And this time, I'd like to open up this blog platform to the conversation that happens between our ears. You know what I'm talking about, right? Come on, I'm not the only person who has a running commentary or ongoing dialogue in my head...am I?
Like today. I went for a walk. To be honest, I was feeling a little bored and even a tad lonely. There was no one else who wanted to walk with me, or I would have invited them. But as I closed the front door behind me, I felt like, maybe God might go along.
I didn't have a lot of expectations, or anything particular I needed him to tell me, or any special thing on my mind. I just invited him to go with me on my walk. He would have gone anyway. But I was still glad I remembered to ask. Because it made for much better conversation, knowing that he knew I knew he was there.
Nothing special happened. But I was thinking about all the non-special things that happen during the course of a day. And how God is a part of them all, how he goes with us through so many boring, insignificant, mundane, wasted moments. He's there in all of them, and what friend can you say that about? The best friends are the ones you can do nothing with. (Did Pooh say that? I can't remember.) In any case, if that's true, then God is the best friend of all.
Our world is roaring with words, but when you stop the steady torrent of input rushing into your head and your ears, something wonderful happens: you realize God is there, and he's got things to say. If you do this for long enough, you start to realize that most of what God has to say is related to the unremarkable. He's so kind, so humble, so gentle, and so real that his thoughts go all the way down to the things you and I just pass by because they're too...well...normal.
But God doesn't let the normal pass him by. In fact, the normal, the nothing, is right where God's attention focuses. That's his strategy. He is shining light and love into places that seem boring and forgotten to us, and it's brilliant because he knows that these millions and billions of moments and spaces - the boring, forgotten ones - make up 99% (or something like that) of human life. So, by being humble, patient, and kind, God redeems the world through his careful, quiet attention to the little things.
It turns out, I'm one of those...little things.
And I don't want to miss out on the fact that God is paying attention to me. I want to let God take my hand and show me around, show me all the places I've passed by, the people I've ignored, the parts of his creation I've stepped over without a glance, the moments that matter precisely because they're so mundane, and I want him to show me what he's doing there.
For the next season of Desire Line blog, I'm going to invite you into that peaceful, fascinating conversation by sharing some of the little revelations (hopefully the ones that make sense) that come to me when I invite God to talk to me through the nothing moments. My hope is that this will make you more aware and more inclined to pay attention to the little things he whispers in your ear.
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Psalm 131:1-2)
