Stepping Away from Busyness and Efficiency

While many of us want to live in the moment—and be present to God’s presence—our whole approach to life militates against such presence. Without a deep change inside, living in the "now" will always be just a romantic dream for us.

Busyness and efficiency are two of the false gods of contemporary culture. Socrates warned: Beware of the barrenness of a busy life. Our society today, however, has ignored that caution. In our attempt to have it all, we keep going faster and faster. The problem is that we run past more than we catch up to. In our greediness for life and experience, we actually miss out on so much of life.

Contemporary Christians have unwittingly fallen into the worship of the same false gods. No different than unbelievers around us, we pursue busyness and efficiency. It is not that hard work is wrong. However, when the hectic pace with which we approach our work consumes our every waking hour and distracts our thoughts, we are no long focused on God. If we hope to experience God to the fullest—and to be available to God in a profound way—we must step away from our pathetic activism.

How often we approach our daily work with stress and distraction. We blame our lack of time with God on our busy schedule, and we accuse our responsibilities for hindering our spiritual maturity.

However, “it is not your work that hinders you” from spiritual growth, asserts the great preacher, Johannes Tauler, “but rather the disordered way in which you work that hinders you. You fail to keep God clearly in your love, in your longing and in your heart. Thus you are scattered and distorted within, and God is not completely intrinsic to you. Truly, what hinders you is not your work or anything other than yourself.” [1]

We assume that it all depends on us, and that we need to work harder and longer to get everything done. However, Scripture tells that the fruitfulness of our labor depends on the Lord and that he gives us peace and rest:

Unless the Lord builds the house,
  its builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
  the watchmen stand guard in vain.
In vain you rise early and stay up late,
  toiling for the food you eat—
  for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Ps 127:1-2)

Let us cast our cares on the Lord all day long as we approach our work and responsibilities, and let us truly enter God’s rest!

1. Johannes Tauler Predigten: Vollständige Ausgabe, edited by Georg Hofmann (Freiburg: Herder, 1961), sermon 5, pp. 35-36. All translations from German are my own.

© 2012 Glenn E. Myers

Present Obedience Opens Unseen Doors

Seldom do we see the significance of the present moment. From our perspective the daily tasks of life often seem mundane. Yet God is present, and he is at work. How often he is forging perseverance in our hearts! How often the Lord is building character in our lives and testing us, to see if we will truly obey him!

When we follow God’s leading, he then builds upon our often-hidden obedience of today as he works out his plans for tomorrow. We do not know what those plans may be. Often we have a guess, and sometimes he gives us a glimpse of what is ahead. Nevertheless, none of us really knows what God is planning. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,” says the Lord in Isaiah 55, “So are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."

When we are faithful in little things, God opens bigger opportunities and greater responsibilities.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade describes it: “We must therefore allow each moment to be the cause of the next; the reason for what precedes being revealed in what follows, so that everything is linked firmly and solidly together in a divine chain of events. The world of ideas, imagination, argument no longer nourishes and sustains souls. They no longer see or know where they are going, no long depend on an effort of will to overcome the fatigue or endure the hardship of the journey. Everything happens in a profound sense of their own helplessness.” [1]

God is present in our least task. He is there far more than we realize in our loving service to others, especially in our least-favorite task! Faithfulness unnoticed by human eyes flings wide open the doors to God’s plans for my future.

[1] Jean-Pierre de Caussade, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, trans. Kitty Muggeridge (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989), p. 21.

© 2012 Glenn E. Myers

God's Presence Permeating Everyday Life

You have graced the sky with the light
  of your glory, O Lord,
And breathed your goodness
  into all that surrounds me.
You have enveloped all of creation with your
  uncreated Beauty, O God,
And crowned the year with your bounty,
  meeting my every need!

Please open my eyes today, O Lord,
  to the wonder of your works all around me.
May I see your fingerprints on the events
  of my everyday life.
Let me appreciate your goodness and your care for me,
  cloaked in the garb of the mundane.
And may I spy your divine presence
  permeating the rhythm of my daily life!

Today my heart will exult in your brilliance,
  permeating the events that seem so small.
My mouth will declare your praises,
  for you pervade the space that surrounds me.
My whole being will bless you all day long, O Lord,
  for your presence fills the heavens and the earth!

Radical Christians: Model of the Friends of God

Basel Muenster What does radical Christianity look like? What does it mean to be a genuine Friend of God? One answer to this question--one model that contemporary believers can learn from--is the group during the 14th century known as the Friends of God. Centered about Basel, Strassburg and Cologne along the Rhine River--the "spiritual artery of Germany"--Johannes Tauler was one of their key leaders. The Friends of God included men and women, singles and married, Beguines and nuns and monks. Yet they were in correspondence with each other. Above all they pursued God with their whole heart. To learn more, click on the left-hand margin to read my article on CBN.com.

God's Presence Filling Ordinary Days

How often I experience God in the exciting times. Lent is an intense time of spiritual focus. Likewise I love to get away on retreat, go on a pilgrimage, or celebrate a sunrise service at Easter. However, ordinary days and seasons of the year are much harder. It is more difficult to maintain energy in my walk with the Lord—as well as be thankfulness—during the day-in and day-out of life.

Life’s Daily Events
Currently I am learning to enjoy God’s presence in the daily events of life. He is harder to see—at least for me—in the mundane, but he is not the least bit less there.

Everyday life is chock full with God’s handiwork. Indeed, the ordinary is pregnant with the presence of God if we but have eyes to see it.

An ordinary sunset displays God’s radiant glory. A quiet half hour over a cup of coffee in the morning is an opportunity to listen to the still, small voice. The wakening of a new day is a revelation of God’s creation.

That is precisely the revelation that an English woman, Eleanor Farjeon, had when she wrote the words to the hymn “Morning has Broken.” She heard the blackbird’s song as an echo of the first bird at creation. In the dawning of the new morning she saw the very first morn springing fresh from the Word!

Eyes of Faith
The eyes of faith discover God’s fingerprints all around us—all other eyes see just an ordinary day. I am learning to cultivate a receptive attitude so I can receive the Lord’s love and peace and presence in the mundane times of life. Recently I saw this quote:

“No heaven can come to us
unless our hearts find rest in it today.
Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future
which is not hidden in this present instant.
Take peace.” -Fra Giovanni

We cannot wait for the extraordinary times and experiences to enjoy the Lord. They are great when they come; however, we must enjoy God’s presence in the ordinary days of life—because that is precisely where we live most of our lives.

© 2012 Glenn E. Myers

Holy Week and Good Friday: Invitation to a Deeper Life

Most of the time we as Christians are far too easily satisfied with a shallow walk with God. We settle for an acquaintanceship with Jesus instead of a robust friendship. We nibble at God’s Word instead of feasting on it and digesting it, making it part of our very being. We want faith without its accompanying repentance. We rush through a quick prayer list but never listen to the Lord speaking to us. We try to witness, but in reality we have little to say to unbelievers since we ourselves have not encountered God radically transforming us.

Although we often tell ourselves that we are doing just fine as believers, underneath we know there must be more. There has to be so much more to a vibrant walk with God than anything we are experiencing!

Radical Life
Holy Week is an invitation to a deeper spiritual life. By “deeper” we mean putting our roots down further in the Lord, loving God on a whole new plane, and soaking in Scripture so it becomes our daily bread. It means seeing the Lord radically alter our thoughts, attitudes, word and deeds.

A deeper life entails substantive transformation in our lives—down at the root level. The word “radical” comes from the Latin for “root.” Radical change is therefore transformation at the root level instead of superficial change on the surface.

Holy Week is an opportunity to take a hard look at ourselves and our walk with God. As we walk through this week before Easter--observing the Last Supper on Thursday, Jesus’ passion on Friday, and the emptiness and waiting of Saturday—we have time for the Lord to search us within. Since the early centuries of the church, Christians have set aside these days leading up to Easter as t time for serious “spring house cleaning” within.

Real
A deeper life with the Lord begins with honesty—being real. Where am I right now? How am I genuinely walking with God, and where have I strayed off the path?

During Holy Week, take a few minutes to write down some reflection to these questions:
-Where am I with God at this point in my life?
-How close or how far away from the Lord has my daily life been over the past couple of months?
-How do I want to go deeper with Jesus?
-What hinders me from being more open and vulnerable with him?

You may want to share these answers with a friend—someone who you can be candid with and someone who cares enough about you to check back and see how you are doing.

Redirection
Holy Week is a time of redirection—setting a new course in life. The word “repentance” comes from the Greek metanoia. Metanoia means to change our thinking or our direction in life. It means we were headed one way but now we are turning around 180 degrees and heading in the opposite direction. Repentance is not simply saying we are sorry. Rather, it means that we move deliberately in the other direction.

What area of your life is sliding in the wrong direction? It can be an action or an attitude. It can be what you say or what you do. It can also be what you are failing to do.

Don’t Miss the Opportunity
In our anticipation of Easter, let us not miss the opportunity for reflection that Holy Week offers us. Let us receive its invitation to enter more fully in the deeper life with Christ than we have ever before experienced!

© 2012 Glenn E. Myers

Lenten Prayer: Awake, O My Soul!

Awake, O my soul!
Awaken to the new day and be fully present to all that is before you.
Awake, O my heart!
Be watchful and embrace all that God gives from his bounty.

Be still, O my thoughts. Do not scatter here and there.
Be attentive to the voice of the Lord and receptive
to all that he is speaking to you this day.

“Awake, my soul!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let your glory be over all the earth.” (Ps 57 NIV)

My heart sings your praise this morning, O Lord,
because you are great and greatly to be praised.
My mouth cries with shouts of joy because you are
clothed in power and strength and majesty.

This is the day that you have made, O my God!
Indeed, I will rejoice and be glad in it.
All day long I will declare your kindness, your goodness,
your magnificence and your splendor.

Yes, be exalted, O God, in my heart and in my life this day.
Be exalted, O God, and let your glory fill the heavens and the earth!
Amen.

© 2012 Glenn E. Myers