I’ve been having many unfocused times lately. If something needs to be done, I do it, but otherwise my mind jumps here and jumps there. “You’ve got to be doing something, accomplishing something,” I tell myself, but I’m just not focused. Funny thing though, these unproductive times have been filled with rich devotional thoughts. I read the Bible or hymnbook, something pops out at me, I go to cross-references, prayers, whatever, and oh, this is good! I exist in God.
Martin Luther: “It happens often that in my meditation I come across such rich thoughts, that I disregard the other six petitions (of the Lord’s Prayer). When such a wealth of ideas comes, one should forego other petitions and make room for such thoughts, listen silently and certainly not hinder them from coming. Under these conditions the Holy Spirit is preaching and in his sermon one word is better than a thousand in our prayer. I have learned much more from this kind of listening than I could have from much reading and reflection.” (“A Simple Way to Pray, for Master Peter the Barber)
This morning’s “Hi and Lois” comic strip: “Is it sad getting old, Mr. Wavering?” “It’s not about how much time you have left but what you do with your time.” “So what are you gonna do?” “Go lie down.”
It’s in the lying down, the unhurried times when you’re not doing something, that the Spirit swirls the words of Jesus in Christian minds. “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26). Don’t just do something, sit there. Or lie down!