Challenge: To postpone all writing (blogs, books, etc.) through the month of December.
Why: To encourage rest, and to allow myself to be fully present with, and focused on, my newly married wife.
-----
For the past year, I’ve been part of a discipleship huddle. Every Thursday morning, like clockwork, you’d fine nine of us crowded around a table near the back of Bob Evan’s. It’s no surprise, at least for me, that my time with and commitment to this group have made 2012 a year of significant spiritual growth for me. But for all the lessons I’ve learned, all the times I’ve heard God speak and was able to respond in obedience, there’s yet one spiritual discipline that perpetually eludes me, one that I find exceedingly difficult to practice, let alone master: the art of rest.
I grew up in a home where the Sabbath – a weekly, intentional day of rest – was embraced and practiced. Our family rarely went out to eat on Sundays, and we never shopped. Instead, after the church service, we’d head home for lunch together. After that, my mother and father would find ways to rest – taking a nap, listening to a record, flipping through the newspaper or a book. My brothers and I, during the summer months, would head outside to play baseball or football; during the winter, we’d flip on videogames or watch a movie. Sunday was set apart as a day to unwind; to sleep; to enjoy each other’s company.
And then, I grew up.
In high school, my advanced and college-level classes heaped homework so high that it made a full day of rest the exception rather than the norm. This was even more true at the University of Kentucky, where I loaded up a twenty, and then a nineteen-hour semester, back-to-back as a freshman. It’s no wonder, after completing that first year of college, that I was experiencing major school fatigue. In a word, I was burned out. But school doesn’t slow down just because you’re tired, and I found a way to keep pushing through – catching cat naps in the library, living on a steady stream of caffeine, and taking no days off. After college, I started a full-time job as a high school science teacher – and suddenly my life as a student seemed carefree. Determined to be a high caliber educator, I spent nearly every waking moment creating lessons, grading papers, and attending school functions. I would often take naps during my planning period, and a few times, even feel asleep at night with my hands on the home keys of my laptop. My lifestyle was becoming exceedingly unsustainable – and after two nonstop years in the classroom, I chose not to renew my contract. I’d burned myself out again.
A year and a half ago, I started work at my church as one of the youth ministers. Having learned nothing, it seemed, from my time as a high school teacher and a college student, I jumped right into this new position with both feet. I started work on a tear, logging 30 – 35 hour weeks, despite the fact that I was only expected to put in (and only getting paid for) twenty hours. It didn’t take long for my boss to catch on. One afternoon, about a month into my new job, he walked into my office and told me to go home. “You’re working too much,” he said, “we can’t have you burn out.” I begrudgingly packed my things and headed home – where I proceeded to sit down on the couch and get right back to work. Sometimes, to quote Lucy, I can be a real blockhead.
Through this year’s discipleship huddle, and the tough love of the other men involved, I’ve come to a stark realization – that my propensity for workaholism is actually a function of my identity. You see, I grew up learning that God loved me; yet somewhere along the line, I decided that if the Almighty was going to bless me with His good graces, I’d better do what I could to make it worth His while. In a word, I wanted to earn His favor; I wanted to be worth His love. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize the face of God’s beloved son; instead, I only saw my faults, my shortcomings, and so I scrunched up my brow to do better in the future. I was determined to put in the hard work I thought was required to climb God’s corporate ladder, to earn my spot as one of His favored children. And so I set myself to excelling – in academics, in work, through volunteering, on mission trips and with inner-city ministries. Don’t get me wrong, each of those things is great – but they could never earn me (or you) God’s merit. Work, even justice-driven, life-changing work, for all the good it does in the world, falls short of defining us – what we do will never be able answer the three basic questions of human life: who am I; why am I here; am I loved?
Thankfully, humanity doesn’t have to face the weight of those existential questions alone – but finding their answers may be challenging, since they won’t be hidden in the buzz of our workday, the low hum of our computer, or the sleep-dispelling light of our iPhone. There is only One who can answer those questions for us – and the psalms teach us that, in order to know Him, we must be still. Until we stop the manic pace at which we live, set aside the constant stream of distracting entertainment, and recognize that our worth is not derived from our usefulness, we will never learn who (and whose) we are.
Not surprisingly, the Father doesn’t leave the answers to such important questions – who am I; why am I here; am I loved? – to mere chance. I’m prone to believe their embedded all around us – in a beautiful sunset, the first snowfall of the winter, the laugh of a dear friend – but even if we miss those cues, He took time to spell them out in black and white. Who am I? Genesis 1:27 teaches that I’m made in God’s own image; 2 Corinthians 5:17 says I’m a new creation, the old way of living having passed on; 1 John 3 says I’m a child of God; even Jesus Himself, in Luke chapter 8, claims that those who are obedient to God are His brothers. Who am I? A child of the Most High.
Why am I here? Psalm 139 says I’m not an accident, that God Himself knit me together in my mother’s womb. 2 Timothy 2:21 teaches that I’m an instrument, set apart for God’s special purposes, holy and useful to the Master. In chapter two of Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, he explains that believers are God’s masterpiece, created to do the good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do. In Matthew 28, before His ascension to heaven, Christ says that we’ve been set here on earth to make disciples, to baptize and teach them to obey everything He commanded. Why am I here? To proclaim, just as Christ did, that the Kingdom of God has come to earth.
Am I loved? The Old Testament prophet Zephaniah proclaimed that God rejoices over His children with gladness and loud singing. The Psalms teach that God is merciful and gracious, patient and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Jeremiah 29:11 shows that God, in His love, has made plans for our lives that are meant for our welfare, to give us hope. Christ himself, in perhaps the most quoted verse of all time, explains that God loved the world to such a degree that He sent Him as a representative, with the power and authority to bring life to all of humanity. Am I loved? To a degree that no human mind could ever comprehend.
With so many verses (and the myriad more I didn’t take time to reference) offering answers to life’s most important questions, how could it be that I – a preacher’s kid, working at a church – could ever be confused about his identity, could ever question who he is, why he’s here, and doubt that he’s loved? I’m convinced, strangely enough, that it has something to do with my baby-like refusal to rest. At the very beginning of the Bible, God introduces the concept of a Sabbath, a weekly time of rest designed as a day of remembrance. Rest has always been a concrete way to demonstrate our faith in the Creator – by stopping our work, we show God that we trust Him to provide. And without work occupying our attention, we find time to turn our thoughts to the Father; to reengage with the identity that He is singing over us; to read and believe His words once more. When we refuse to slow down, to spend time with Him, to engage in His rest, then its only natural that we begin to lose ourselves, to forget the identity that Christ died to give us. He is singing over us, calling us His beloved sons and daughters, and yet for many of us, myself included, the noise of our lives drowns out that song.
In January of this year, I relaunched my blog by engaging in a little experiment I called A Year of Change. The idea was simple – instead of picking one New Year’s resolution to wrestle with for the entire year, I’d choose twelve different, month-long challenges and blog about my experiences. I started with Jesus-Music January (a month of nothing but Christian music) and along the way experimented with veganism, following the Old Testament laws, and most recently, writing a month’s worth of thank-you notes. Over the course of the year, I wrote 114 blogs – which averages out to about two a week. Personally, I’m stunned by that number – I had no idea I’d written that much. That statistic, while highlighting one of my greatest strengths, also screams of my most profound weakness – self-motivation. For whatever reason, I’m an extremely self-motivated individual; If I set out to do something, you can bet I’ll get it done (which is probably why I enjoy distance running, but that’s a blog for another day). That self-motivation, however, can be blinding at times. My mind always seems to be in the “on-to-the-next-thing” mode, never slowing down enough to enjoy the present. After each blog I posted this year, all 114 of them, my mind always raced to the exact same thought: what will I write about next? It’s almost a sickness, and something that must be changed.
And so enters the last challenge of my Year of Change. For the remainder of this month (and year), I will not be writing. Don’t worry, I haven’t given up the craft of putting together words entirely – think of this more like a “fast” than a “diet.” The reason for this is two-fold. First, December is probably the craziest month of the entire year – we sing about silent nights, but our lives are quite the opposite. I’ve already spent untold hours running from store to store, buying Christmas presents, attending parties, and trying to make it to every family event… and we still have seventeen more days till Christmas. In all the hustle and bustle, its so easy to forget what this season is really about – the birth of the Messiah, the Word that became flesh. I hope that, by choosing not to write, I can find more time to dwell on the significance of the event I’ll be celebrating on December 25th.
The second reason, I’ll admit, is a bit more selfish. In a week, I’ll be married to a beautiful, patient, and hard-working young woman. The next seven days, leading up to the wedding, are sure to be some of the most exciting, and stressful, of my young life. And then, in the span of a few short hours, the event we’ve been planning for over a year will be complete, and we’ll head out on our honeymoon as Mr. and Mrs. Mathis. For me, the temptation will be to continue working, to allow my mind to dream up another big project for us to immediately undertake together. But that’s not God’s plan. In fact, part of the Old Testament law, found in Deuteronomy 24:5, mandates that a man, after getting married, is to take an entire year off from work. The new husband’s focus is to be on learning to live with, and love, his wife. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to skip out on work for the duration of 2013 – but I can close the computer for the rest of this month, choosing to instead give the time I’d normally spend writing to my wife. She’s wonderfully supportive of my dream of being a writer, but of all the wedding presents we’ll get, I have a feeling this one just may well be her favorite. But I’ll be honest, of all the challenges I’ve undertaken this year, choosing not to write may be the most difficult to complete. But I’m up for the challenge – you know, that whole self-motivated thing.
So that’s it. The rest of December, at least for this blog, will be a string of silent nights. But check back in 2013, because big things are coming down the pipe – including the publication of my first book (!!!!!), and a few ideas I’m tossing around my head for 2013.
But before I sign off, I must take a moment to offer a huge THANK YOU to everyone who’s taken time to read this year. Each of you, in your own way, have contributed to my dream of being a writer – and that is not something I take lightly. I sincerely appreciate all the support and encouragement I’ve received from you. Its my humblest prayer that something you’ve read on this site has, in some small way, been able to repay you for all the love and encouragement you’ve shown me.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year… and I’ll see you in 2013!
Why: To encourage rest, and to allow myself to be fully present with, and focused on, my newly married wife.
-----
For the past year, I’ve been part of a discipleship huddle. Every Thursday morning, like clockwork, you’d fine nine of us crowded around a table near the back of Bob Evan’s. It’s no surprise, at least for me, that my time with and commitment to this group have made 2012 a year of significant spiritual growth for me. But for all the lessons I’ve learned, all the times I’ve heard God speak and was able to respond in obedience, there’s yet one spiritual discipline that perpetually eludes me, one that I find exceedingly difficult to practice, let alone master: the art of rest.
I grew up in a home where the Sabbath – a weekly, intentional day of rest – was embraced and practiced. Our family rarely went out to eat on Sundays, and we never shopped. Instead, after the church service, we’d head home for lunch together. After that, my mother and father would find ways to rest – taking a nap, listening to a record, flipping through the newspaper or a book. My brothers and I, during the summer months, would head outside to play baseball or football; during the winter, we’d flip on videogames or watch a movie. Sunday was set apart as a day to unwind; to sleep; to enjoy each other’s company.
And then, I grew up.
In high school, my advanced and college-level classes heaped homework so high that it made a full day of rest the exception rather than the norm. This was even more true at the University of Kentucky, where I loaded up a twenty, and then a nineteen-hour semester, back-to-back as a freshman. It’s no wonder, after completing that first year of college, that I was experiencing major school fatigue. In a word, I was burned out. But school doesn’t slow down just because you’re tired, and I found a way to keep pushing through – catching cat naps in the library, living on a steady stream of caffeine, and taking no days off. After college, I started a full-time job as a high school science teacher – and suddenly my life as a student seemed carefree. Determined to be a high caliber educator, I spent nearly every waking moment creating lessons, grading papers, and attending school functions. I would often take naps during my planning period, and a few times, even feel asleep at night with my hands on the home keys of my laptop. My lifestyle was becoming exceedingly unsustainable – and after two nonstop years in the classroom, I chose not to renew my contract. I’d burned myself out again.
A year and a half ago, I started work at my church as one of the youth ministers. Having learned nothing, it seemed, from my time as a high school teacher and a college student, I jumped right into this new position with both feet. I started work on a tear, logging 30 – 35 hour weeks, despite the fact that I was only expected to put in (and only getting paid for) twenty hours. It didn’t take long for my boss to catch on. One afternoon, about a month into my new job, he walked into my office and told me to go home. “You’re working too much,” he said, “we can’t have you burn out.” I begrudgingly packed my things and headed home – where I proceeded to sit down on the couch and get right back to work. Sometimes, to quote Lucy, I can be a real blockhead.
Through this year’s discipleship huddle, and the tough love of the other men involved, I’ve come to a stark realization – that my propensity for workaholism is actually a function of my identity. You see, I grew up learning that God loved me; yet somewhere along the line, I decided that if the Almighty was going to bless me with His good graces, I’d better do what I could to make it worth His while. In a word, I wanted to earn His favor; I wanted to be worth His love. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize the face of God’s beloved son; instead, I only saw my faults, my shortcomings, and so I scrunched up my brow to do better in the future. I was determined to put in the hard work I thought was required to climb God’s corporate ladder, to earn my spot as one of His favored children. And so I set myself to excelling – in academics, in work, through volunteering, on mission trips and with inner-city ministries. Don’t get me wrong, each of those things is great – but they could never earn me (or you) God’s merit. Work, even justice-driven, life-changing work, for all the good it does in the world, falls short of defining us – what we do will never be able answer the three basic questions of human life: who am I; why am I here; am I loved?
Thankfully, humanity doesn’t have to face the weight of those existential questions alone – but finding their answers may be challenging, since they won’t be hidden in the buzz of our workday, the low hum of our computer, or the sleep-dispelling light of our iPhone. There is only One who can answer those questions for us – and the psalms teach us that, in order to know Him, we must be still. Until we stop the manic pace at which we live, set aside the constant stream of distracting entertainment, and recognize that our worth is not derived from our usefulness, we will never learn who (and whose) we are.
Not surprisingly, the Father doesn’t leave the answers to such important questions – who am I; why am I here; am I loved? – to mere chance. I’m prone to believe their embedded all around us – in a beautiful sunset, the first snowfall of the winter, the laugh of a dear friend – but even if we miss those cues, He took time to spell them out in black and white. Who am I? Genesis 1:27 teaches that I’m made in God’s own image; 2 Corinthians 5:17 says I’m a new creation, the old way of living having passed on; 1 John 3 says I’m a child of God; even Jesus Himself, in Luke chapter 8, claims that those who are obedient to God are His brothers. Who am I? A child of the Most High.
Why am I here? Psalm 139 says I’m not an accident, that God Himself knit me together in my mother’s womb. 2 Timothy 2:21 teaches that I’m an instrument, set apart for God’s special purposes, holy and useful to the Master. In chapter two of Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, he explains that believers are God’s masterpiece, created to do the good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do. In Matthew 28, before His ascension to heaven, Christ says that we’ve been set here on earth to make disciples, to baptize and teach them to obey everything He commanded. Why am I here? To proclaim, just as Christ did, that the Kingdom of God has come to earth.
Am I loved? The Old Testament prophet Zephaniah proclaimed that God rejoices over His children with gladness and loud singing. The Psalms teach that God is merciful and gracious, patient and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Jeremiah 29:11 shows that God, in His love, has made plans for our lives that are meant for our welfare, to give us hope. Christ himself, in perhaps the most quoted verse of all time, explains that God loved the world to such a degree that He sent Him as a representative, with the power and authority to bring life to all of humanity. Am I loved? To a degree that no human mind could ever comprehend.
With so many verses (and the myriad more I didn’t take time to reference) offering answers to life’s most important questions, how could it be that I – a preacher’s kid, working at a church – could ever be confused about his identity, could ever question who he is, why he’s here, and doubt that he’s loved? I’m convinced, strangely enough, that it has something to do with my baby-like refusal to rest. At the very beginning of the Bible, God introduces the concept of a Sabbath, a weekly time of rest designed as a day of remembrance. Rest has always been a concrete way to demonstrate our faith in the Creator – by stopping our work, we show God that we trust Him to provide. And without work occupying our attention, we find time to turn our thoughts to the Father; to reengage with the identity that He is singing over us; to read and believe His words once more. When we refuse to slow down, to spend time with Him, to engage in His rest, then its only natural that we begin to lose ourselves, to forget the identity that Christ died to give us. He is singing over us, calling us His beloved sons and daughters, and yet for many of us, myself included, the noise of our lives drowns out that song.
In January of this year, I relaunched my blog by engaging in a little experiment I called A Year of Change. The idea was simple – instead of picking one New Year’s resolution to wrestle with for the entire year, I’d choose twelve different, month-long challenges and blog about my experiences. I started with Jesus-Music January (a month of nothing but Christian music) and along the way experimented with veganism, following the Old Testament laws, and most recently, writing a month’s worth of thank-you notes. Over the course of the year, I wrote 114 blogs – which averages out to about two a week. Personally, I’m stunned by that number – I had no idea I’d written that much. That statistic, while highlighting one of my greatest strengths, also screams of my most profound weakness – self-motivation. For whatever reason, I’m an extremely self-motivated individual; If I set out to do something, you can bet I’ll get it done (which is probably why I enjoy distance running, but that’s a blog for another day). That self-motivation, however, can be blinding at times. My mind always seems to be in the “on-to-the-next-thing” mode, never slowing down enough to enjoy the present. After each blog I posted this year, all 114 of them, my mind always raced to the exact same thought: what will I write about next? It’s almost a sickness, and something that must be changed.
And so enters the last challenge of my Year of Change. For the remainder of this month (and year), I will not be writing. Don’t worry, I haven’t given up the craft of putting together words entirely – think of this more like a “fast” than a “diet.” The reason for this is two-fold. First, December is probably the craziest month of the entire year – we sing about silent nights, but our lives are quite the opposite. I’ve already spent untold hours running from store to store, buying Christmas presents, attending parties, and trying to make it to every family event… and we still have seventeen more days till Christmas. In all the hustle and bustle, its so easy to forget what this season is really about – the birth of the Messiah, the Word that became flesh. I hope that, by choosing not to write, I can find more time to dwell on the significance of the event I’ll be celebrating on December 25th.
The second reason, I’ll admit, is a bit more selfish. In a week, I’ll be married to a beautiful, patient, and hard-working young woman. The next seven days, leading up to the wedding, are sure to be some of the most exciting, and stressful, of my young life. And then, in the span of a few short hours, the event we’ve been planning for over a year will be complete, and we’ll head out on our honeymoon as Mr. and Mrs. Mathis. For me, the temptation will be to continue working, to allow my mind to dream up another big project for us to immediately undertake together. But that’s not God’s plan. In fact, part of the Old Testament law, found in Deuteronomy 24:5, mandates that a man, after getting married, is to take an entire year off from work. The new husband’s focus is to be on learning to live with, and love, his wife. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to skip out on work for the duration of 2013 – but I can close the computer for the rest of this month, choosing to instead give the time I’d normally spend writing to my wife. She’s wonderfully supportive of my dream of being a writer, but of all the wedding presents we’ll get, I have a feeling this one just may well be her favorite. But I’ll be honest, of all the challenges I’ve undertaken this year, choosing not to write may be the most difficult to complete. But I’m up for the challenge – you know, that whole self-motivated thing.
So that’s it. The rest of December, at least for this blog, will be a string of silent nights. But check back in 2013, because big things are coming down the pipe – including the publication of my first book (!!!!!), and a few ideas I’m tossing around my head for 2013.
But before I sign off, I must take a moment to offer a huge THANK YOU to everyone who’s taken time to read this year. Each of you, in your own way, have contributed to my dream of being a writer – and that is not something I take lightly. I sincerely appreciate all the support and encouragement I’ve received from you. Its my humblest prayer that something you’ve read on this site has, in some small way, been able to repay you for all the love and encouragement you’ve shown me.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year… and I’ll see you in 2013!
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