…the Lord will giveth thee one.
Three weeks with no Sabbath rest and today the Lord has graced me with one. I have a horrid sore throat and runny nose. I couldn’t breathe all night and I am achy all over. AND I am missing “grandbaby day.”
But today, I rest. It IS grace.
I should truly know better!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Make every effort to enter that rest - before the sickies!
I read this online article. Color me wary.
Clean Your House In 19 Minutes
By Real Simple With a plan of attack, you can maintain a sparkling house in just 19 minutes a day
Kitchen, 4 1/2 minutes daily
Always start with the sink. A sparkling sink becomes your kitchen’s benchmark for hygiene and tidiness, inspiring you to load the dishwasher immediately and keep counters, refrigerator doors, and the stove top spick-and-span, too.
- Wipe down the sink after doing the dishes or loading the dishwasher (30 seconds).
- Wipe down the stove top (one minute).
- Wipe down the counters (one minute).
- Sweep, Swiffer, or vacuum the floor (two minutes).
Bathroom, 2 minutes daily
Make cleaning the basin as routine as washing your hands. But don’t stop there. Get the most out of your pre-moistened wipe by using it to clean around the edges of the tub and then the toilet before tossing it.
- Wipe out the sink (30 seconds). Wipe the toilet seat and rim (15 seconds).
- Swoosh the toilet bowl with a brush (15 seconds).
- Wipe the mirror and faucet (15 seconds).
- Squeegee the shower door (30 seconds).
- Spray the entire shower and the curtain liner with shower mist after every use (15 seconds).
Bedroom, 6 1/2 minutes daily
Make your bed right before or after your morning shower. A neat bed will inspire you to deal with other messes immediately. Although smoothing sheets and plumping pillows might not seem like a high priority as you’re rushing to work, the payoff comes at the end of the day, when you slip back under the unruffled covers.
- Make the bed (two minutes).
- Fold or hang clothing and put away jewelry (four minutes).
- Straighten out the night-table surface (30 seconds).
Family Room, Living Room, Foyer, 6 minutes daily
Start with the sofa – as long as it’s in disarray, your living room will never look tidy. Once you’ve fluffed the pillows and folded the throws, you’re halfway home. If you pop in a CD while you dust, you should be able cover the whole room by the end of the third track.
- Pick up crumbs and dust bunnies with a handheld vacuum (one minute).
- Fluff the cushions and fold throws after use (two minutes).
- Wipe tabletops and spot-clean cabinets when you see fingerprints (one minute).
- Straighten coffee-table books and magazines. Throw out newspapers. Put away CDs and videos. (Two minutes.)
I notice they say this is the way to MAINTAIN a ”sparkling house.” This does seem to imply it should be sparkling to begin with. Mine has somewhat of a sheen, but I don’t know that I could say it is actually sparkling. Troubling.
Kitchens: Ok, so-my theory on the clean sink is that “A freshly scoured and polished sink will go looking for dirty dishes.” And while I love seeing my reflection in the sink, I can’t say it actually “inspires” me to load the dishwasher – especially when I often have to unload it first. Has the verb ”swiffering” or “to swiffer” made the dictionery yet?
Bathrooms: If I spend 15 seconds “wiping” the mirror, I will then need 10 minutes to get the streaks off that I just caused. I have one of those Scrubbing Bubble misters in the shower that are supposedly the equivalent of 30 maids filling your shower stall. It is handy, but I’d fire those maids if they didn’t a better job than it does!
Bedroom: Boy-oh-boy, I can save some major minutes here. Not enough jewelry to take that long AND I can cut off some time with the bed-making. Two minutes to make a bed? Novices! I’ll make that bed in 41.2 seconds!
Common Family Spaces: Well, these areas would not be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that I have such a big, honking family! I don’t have any CDs with 2 minute songs (6 minutes total, by the “end of three songs”???=2 minute songs…I don’t think so). Plus, I no longer put DVDs away. Dave and Stormie and the Netflix people know why.
Well, so anyway, I think I’ll spend the next 6 and a half weeks creating some sparkle so I can maintain it in only 19 minutes a day…but wait-what if I take a Sabbath? The whole plan is already shot.
Maintaining, just barely…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Read their follow-up article “How to speed-clean your kitchen” because 4 1/2 minutes is just too much of a time investment.
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Labor Day is a day off for the working citizens of America. Stop working. I mean it. Cease. Stop it! Quit working right now! This is a fedreally mandated day off, for crying out loud! Plus, God wants you to enjoy time off, too.
Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 11.28-30 (Amplified):
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease, and relieve and refresh your souls.]
Take My yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle (meek), and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief, and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.
For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good – not harsh, hard, sharp or pressing, but comfortable, gracious and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.
That post title, my friends, was just one of the amazing “thought-questions”posed in Mark Batterson’s upcoming tome.
I put aside both of the books I had been reading and skipped over the one I was suppose to start next to read a pre-released copy of Batterson’s Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God. Once I picked it up for a quick perusal, I was hooked.
He explains the title:
Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit–An Geadh-Glas, or ‘the Wild Goose.’ The name hints at mystery. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it’s like to follow the Spirit through life. I think the Celtic Christians were on to something…
The author contrasts animals he got to observe living wild and free while in the Galapagos Islands (which he described as “Edenic” and a place that caused him to feel a great affinity to Adam) in contrast to those he was observing in a zoo a couple of months later. No matter how you slice it, those zoo animals are caged. The whole book plays off the premise that we live our lives in 6 ”cages”: responsibility (where God-passions get buried beneath day-to-day living), routine (following our plans, never seeing another way), assumptions (those truths you begin to believe such as I could never…, I can’t…, I’m not…when you are living from your left-brain memory rather than your right-brain imagination). Then there are the cages of guilt (defeat over all our past sin and missteps), failure (doesn’t this one stink?? – trying and failing stops us from ever trying again), and finally the cage of fear (living life on the defense rather than the offense) and goes on to explore both Biblical and modern-day people who were able to break free of those confines.
Each chapter is complete and very-good-sermon-like, but Mark Batterson ties them all very well together as he leads us on the chase for the Wild Goose, living a life of adventure by the leading of the Holy Spirit.
It’s an easy and quick read, with great humor, some interesting character study and poignant story-telling. It’s kind of like Eldridge’s Journey of Desire or The Sacred Romance, but waaaaaaay shorter and more quickly to the point. He writes in a relaxing, conversational way that was not only engaging for the reading, but seemed to invite me into prayer as I read. That is probably what surprised me the most: how much I was drawn into an awareness of the Presence and His leading as I was reading. Batterson really had a way of posing thoughtful questions that immediately caused me to want to hear from God on the issue or confess and repent or ask for an answer or pray a commitment or something. I prayed my way through most of the book. Laughed and cried, too.
In that regard, I wholly recommend this book. It isn’t about earth-shattering new revelation necessarily, but it is a call to that which the Spirit of God speaks to us constantly and we often ignore – due to life’s “cages.” That is why it rings so true, I guess, and why my heart took a fancy to the book, the idea and the call to chase the Wild Goose. http://chasethegoose.com
Read it!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I am part of something bigger and more important than me: the cause of Christ for this generation.
SOME THINGS I UNDERLINED FROM THE FIRST HALF OF THE BOOK:
We try to make God fit within the confines of our cerebral cortex. We try to reduce the will of God to the logical limits of our left brain. But the will of God is neither logical nor linear. It is downright confusing and complicated. p.2
A part of us feels as if something is spiritually wrong with us when we experience circumstantial uncertainty…But [it] goes by another name: adventure. p. 2
…inverted Christianity. Instead of following the Spirit, we invite the Spirit to follow us. p. 4
…as I looked through the protective Plexiglas window at a four-hundred-pound caged gorilla: I wonder if churches do to people what zoos do to animals. p. 5
Just like the rich young ruler, we have a choice to make…We can stay in our cage, end up with everything and realize it amounts to nothing. Or we can come out of our cage and chase the Wild Goose. p. 10
Chapter Two: Goose Bumps p. 15
A few years ago I figured out how I want to die. p. 15
But I do want to die doing what I love. I am determined to pursue God-ordained passions until the day I die. p. 16
Start praying. Prayer makes us spiritually fertile. And the more we pray, the more passionate we become. Our convictions grow stronger and our dreams grow bigger. p. 26
When Christianity turns into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity was always intended to be a verb. p. 29
I don’t want to do things I am capable of doing. Why? Because then I can take credit for them. I want to see God do things in me and through me that I am absolutely incapable of so I can’t possibly take credit for them. p. 35
Concerning Nehemiah: If you are faithful in Babylon, God will bless you in Jerusalem. p. 40
Have you ever experienced an epiphany – a moment when God unexpectedly and unforgettably invaded the monotony of your life…The Celtic Christians referred to these kinds of moments – moments when heaven and earth seem to touch – as thin places. Natural and supernatural worlds collide. Creation meets creator. Sin meets grace. Routine meets the Wild Goose. p. 46
One name for God in Rabbinical literature is The Place. p. 47
Altars help us remember what God doesn’t want us to forget. They give us a sacred place to go back to. p. 48
change of place + change of pace = change of perspective p. 50
I know from experience that you can do the work of God at a pace that destroys the work of God in you. p. 53
Sabbath… creates a holy margin in our lives…The word Sabbath means “to catch one’s breath.” p. 54
Hurry kills everything from compassion to creativity. p. 57
We need to quit praying out of memory and start praying out of imagination. p. 60
Has God ever called you to throw something down? Something in which you find your security or put your identity? It’s awfully hard to let go, isn’t it? It feels like you are jeopardizing your future. And it feels like you could lose what is most important to you. But that is when you discover who you really are. p. 65
You have to be willing to let go of an old identity in order to take on a new identity. p. 66
Pride is offended when assumptions are challenged. Humility welcomes the challenge because the desire to know God is greater than the need to be right. p. 75
It’s never too late to become who you might have been. p. 79
I promise not to update every stinking day…
But I just wanted to tell you how beautiful and sweet and restorative last night was. It was the kick-off to our 40 Nights of Prayer and Worship leading up to Heaven Fest. The sound system was set up on the veranda outside the cafe at Northern Hills on the west side of the building. There was a gentle breeze and a brilliant sun. Swans were swimming to beat the band in the pond and we got to worship God through a beautiful sunset, reflected on the water. Double blessing!
Some people prayed out loud, some silently. The three young children there with their parents frolicked joyfully in the beautiful summer, night air. It was a disconnect from TV, work, cell phones, computers, etc., etc. And though we went to pray for Heaven Fest, we found God waiting to kiss us with rest and repair. And He did paint THE most beautiful sunset for us, as the crickets worshiped along and the birds fluttered by.
So-come when you can. Just sit. Just soak. Bring the kids.
NOTE: My kiddos are leading worship tonight (Dave and Tara and Rocky and Tris and Steph and Stormie and Dan and Marianna). Mary Jean and I will tomorrow night. It isn’t another church service. It isn’t another Christian duty. It isn’t another have to. But if you feel like “getting away” (unplug, already!), just come. Just come…
I promise I am not “shoulding” on you!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: To BE rather than to DO, that is the ticket!
"My great Aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy everyday of her life. She lived to be a hundred and two and when she'd been dead for 3 days, she looked better than you do right now." – the critic in the 1942 black and white movie, "The Man Who Came to Dinner" to his nurse, who was telling him candy wasn't a good thing for him.
My secret indulgence?…the thing I yearn to do that always makes me feel rested and as if I have just done the most luxurious and decadent thing? A black and white movie in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
I wonder why I rarely allow myself this simple, satisfying pleasure?…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Put this activity on my list of Sabbath-rest life-givers (Sabbath: "Cease from what is necessary. Embrace that which brings life. Then, do what you want." – Mark Buchanan in The Rest of God).
Work 6 days, rest 1…work 6 days, rest 1…work 6, rest 1…work 6, rest 1…
What is so stinking hard about that? Why is this the commandment we not only break regularly, but with great pride? "Oh, I am so swamped…I am soooo busy…I have this going and that going and - and - and…" And we are defeated and tired and broken down and lost in fatigue wondering where our spark has gone? There has to be more than this to life, right? Weren't we created for something more?
Here's how everybody knows when you haven't been keeping the Sabbath holy and making every effort to enter the rest God has for you…that's right – it is a GIFT! (see Hebrews 4). When:
Everybody knows. I do because, well, you know, it takes one to know one. I know for myself that when I move away from this gift of rest from God, from this invitation to keep one day of the week separate and holy and peaceful and restful, I fall right back into my striving, workaholism ways making me and everyone around me miserable. The more time I put into work, the less I get accomplished.
At the Sabbath rest intensive I attended recently (www.getthewordout.cc) Mary Jean gave us a list about what Sabbath, a day set apart to the Lord, a day to keep holy, really is. I want to share some that hit me between the eyes here. She said it is more than the absence of work. A Sabbath…
…gives us permission to stop …frees us from the need to be finished …gives us time to remember …is comfort …is time in God's Presence …allows the mind to rest in the heart, helps us surrender to quality time …is being still and knowing …makes me uniquely poised for God's Presence …is a time to play …is a time to pay attention …is prayerful thankfulness instead of prayerful petition …is an acknowledgement that we have enough …makes me unflinchingly useless – nothing will get done or be checked off my list; no goal will be accomplished, nothing will be measured …is time to ask the right questions: Lord, are your really first in my life? Am I seeing You? Am I hearing You? …is time to relax without guilt …is about trust – turning over to God all the things I am holding on to so tightly …is a day to which all other days have no claim …is a day to STOP doing what you ought to do …is for ceasing from the necessary and embracing that which gives life …doesn't let the future have power over our present …is for spending time producing nothing but adrenaline, laughter and memories …is a day God meant to fuss over us with, not us over it!…is Father's gift to indulge us, bless us, heal us
Oh, my goodness – how would the Church look different if we would accept and receive and repent and obey in this one area alone? How would I look different, more like the woman God saw when He created me? How healed would our bodies and minds be? Would sleeping hard from playing hard bring the sweet sleep of our youth back? Would our brain chemicals get renewed and would we quit turning to food and pain pills and other chemical solutions for what ails us?
Work 6, rest 1…What is so hard about that and why do each of us believe we are the only person to whom that does not apply?…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Remember Him. Remember the Sabbath He made for me. Keep it holy. Get a life, get a healed life. Work 6 – no more than 6, then rest 1. Period. Trust Him. (That just made me think of an old Keith Green song, "Doing our best, pray that it's blessed, and then don't worry-He'll take care of the rest!")
When I was a kid, growing up in a pastor's home, we had really funny ideas about Sunday. One was that it was "the Sabbath," sometimes called a "day of rest," and the other that it was to be set apart and be really different from other days of the week.
The reason both ideas were so odd is that for a pastoral family who had Sunday School and worship services and Sunday night church, too, to call Sundays a "day of rest" was not really very accurate. It was truly a work day for my parents and my mom, who cooked the most elaborate meal of the week on Sundays, spent most of the precious few "off" hours she had that day on the couch with her feet elevated and a cold washcloth on her forehead trying to get past a headache. But by golly – if anyone asked, it was our day of rest. Ha!
The other part – the setting the day apart as different was really a good goal, but I just knew it made us the strangest people on the block. Our attempt at making the Sabbath holy was achieved through, of course, lots of church attendance and perhaps Sunday dinner with parishoners. It meant that I could not open the big, fat, juicy Sunday newspaper (I was a fanatic about newspapers) because we just didn't read them on Sundays. We didn't watch television until after Sunday night service, if at all and we didn't shop on Sundays. If we didn't have something we needed, we just didn't get it.
I have come to understand that Sabbath rest is from God FOR me. I now know – it is not a suggestion in case I feel I can fit it in, but it is a commandment. I get that you work 6 days and then you rest one (just like God did!). It doesn't have to be a Sunday (my daughter, Tara, takes hers on Thursdays), but it has to be every 6 days. Period. And I know from personal experience that if you think you're too busy, if you believe that the world will crash if you take a day of complete rest, if you walk in disobedience to this one thing after you know better – you will crash. You will suffer the consequences and so will the people you love the most.
I attended an awesome Get the Word Out! intensive (www.getthewordout.cc) on Sabbath rest last Saturday. I invited people I love to come. Most of them were too busy. And in the ensuing week as we have talked, I see the weight they carry and the exhaustion in their faces and the weariness they dare not believe you can live without. They are limping towards their vacations with great hope that it will be enough to get them through. But here is a revolutionary concept concerning your days: work 6, rest 1…work 6, rest 1…work 6, rest 1…Mary Jean taught that (The GWO speaker/teacher) and asked to ponder, if we did that – work 6, rest 1, would that 2 week vacation we take be so desperate and wearing on us, or would we actually get to go in to it in really good shape – perhaps enjoying it and getting revitalized instead of having to use it to recuperate from life? We should all consider it.
And the winner is? The person committing to rest (God's gift), regularly, as prescribed by their Creator…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Rediscover restorative, creative, fun activities; indulge unabashedly and freely!
Last summer I attended the very first partners and prayer support team meeting for the fledgling Worship and the Word Movement ministry in which my son-in-law, Dave, and daughter, Tara, were embarking. God has opened all sorts of doors for them in the ensuing year. In 2 days, they leave for Orlando, where they will lead worship and teach at Life 2007 to 10,000 students. Good things are happening.
And I reflect on it because at the gathering last summer, Dave and Tara led a song Dave had written called, "Yes" (CD by the same title to be released in September) I had never heard it and I was in a really, really difficult time of my life and to tell you the truth, I couldn't sing it. It seemed at the time I had nothing to say "yes" to (I've written about this previously here and here). I looked around the barn on this beautiful summer evening and saw all these sincere faces with pure hearts, steadfast in their commitment to follow Jesus no matter what and they sang, "Yes!" And I couldn't. I felt like God had taken everything from me there was to say "yes" to and that I alone had nothing to throw myself into.
With bittersweet tears shooting out, I said to a couple of my kids, "What? I am suppose to say 'yes' to rest? What is that?"
I'm telling you this by way of confession because I hope you know that it wasn't true that I had nothing to say "yes" to. I hope you know that I was placing myself in a pity-puddle of the refusal to accept pause and rest as gift. And I am confessing this in case you are reading and feeling the same. Make your list and come out of the fog. Wait until the house is empty and start yelling, "YES!" into the air and refuse to believe the enemy lie that there is nothing more.
Here's my list: yes to being Dave's wife, friend, lover, bride; yes to grandparenting Gavin and Guini and Hunter and now Gemma; yes to the friendship and "being there" and mothering, still, the grown kids God blessed me with; yes to blessing the parents who raised me; yes to hanging in there with friends and pursuing life-giving relationships; yes to loving my neighbors and figuring out how that really works; yes to consuming His Words, like honey to my lips; yes to pressing in to really know God; and yes to laying down my desires, wants amd wishes – He must increase, I must decrease. Yes!
The days are coming: "Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won't be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once – and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills….God, your God says so." Amos 9.13-15 The MessageYES! What promise! Somewhere along the way, hope re-ignited. I came across this in my early 2007 journaling:
Yes to You, Lord Yes to Your will Yes to Your plan Yes to the process, regardless of how long it will take (a lifetime, Lord?) Yes to the pain of this purification Yes to the price (because it costs everything) Yes.I love that "Yes" song now and sing my head off whenever Dave and Tara lead it. "Yes, yes, yes, yes…"
Yes is better. Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: This quote by Dag Hammarskjold seems appropriate here: "For all that has been, Thanks! To all that shall be, Yes!"
Sleep. Rest. Be at peace.
God can handle everything without you – really He can.
Be blessed, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: "Here's an activity that I recommend: Find a shaft of sunlight, curl up in the puddle of its warmth and nap with doglike dereliction." – Scrap of paper I once tore from a newspaper
