… He dismissed the crowd.

Matthew 14v22

In my quest to learn the Quiet Life— that daily living tucked into God’s presence, being who I am made to be, doing what I am directed to do— I am mulling over the ever popular topic of Time Management. 

For years now, God has been opening my eyes to the way He uses time to His purposes. Maybe someday I’ll gather all those pieces in one place and post them here where everything going in me seems to eventually come out. But this morning, these words about Jesus won’t leave me alone:

He dismissed the crowd.

These were people He cared about. People who were hungry for His story, desperately thirsty to know the Father. They were not nuisances, time wasters, hangers-on. These people were His mission.

And yet He left them. He demanded that they leave. He dismissed them.

Sometimes— often— we must dismiss the crowd. Just like Jesus.

If you are a mother (dare I say it?) that may mean your children. I shudder when a mother proudly boasts that she’s never left her kids overnight. Really? As if that is a badge of honor for Most-Needed Mama. It’s also a citation for a much-neglected marriage.

Sometimes, for the sake of sanity, a mother needs to dismiss the crowd.

If you are well on your way to win the most successful employee of the year award at your work, you may well need to dismiss the List Of One More Thing To Do. One more call to make, one more evening spent organizing for productivity, one more schmooze after work with the boss.

To work and work and work makes for some twisted brokenness in any of us. Nobody is as impressed as we wish they were by our constant pushing of ourselves. Especially when it leaves us prickly and crabby and hinting that if only everyone else would work this hard then we wouldn’t have to.

Sometimes, for wholeness, hard working do-ers need to dismiss the crowd and (gulp!) do less.

If you are, like me, driven by the compulsion to keep everyone happy, you may need to do exactly what I need to do. I need to dismiss the expectations. I need to face the fact that the cost of pleasing everyone will bankrupt me. That I’ll have nothing more to give if I’ve turned myself inside out to try to be more than I am.

Sometimes, people-pleasers need to have the courage to dismiss the crowd.

The other night, Phil found the movie Chariots of Fire on Netflix. He insisted that we watch it together because he had a point to make. It’s in a scene where Eric Liddell is explaining to his sister that he cannot yet go to China where he is going to spend the rest of his life as a missionary. She’s disappointed in him and clearly disapproves (my worst nightmare!). This is what he says: “I believe that God made me for a purpose--for China-- but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure."

Because after writing a post about The Rhythm of Slow, my husband affectionately twisted that memorable line to encourage me to say,

 I believe God made me for a purpose... but He also made me slow. And when I mull and think and read and learn and write, I feel His pleasure.

He was reminding me with all that charisma that makes him able to say hard things well, that I am best when I am who I am. That when I try to be like someone I admire or someone I think I should be, when I hurry at a pace that is theirs and not mine, I inevitably stumble.

But when I’m me— when I dismiss the crowd of unrealistic expectations— when I plod at my own pace, that’s when I am the me I am meant to be. 

I don’t know who or what is your crowd to dismiss. Who you need to get away from in order to come back and love them more and better. What you may need to turn off in order to be content with who you are. (hint, hint, your iPhone!)

What I do know is that Jesus dismissed His crowd to be alone with the Father for a while. He needed to reconnect, to remember, to think and pray and rest in His presence.

After He had dismissed them,

He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray.

Matthew 14v23

I think that’s what He is whispering to me today. That managing my time means going at my own pace and being okay with slow. Dismissing my own expectations of me. And being okay with those who aren’t okay with that.

He is showing me the way to freedom to do what I need to do. And He is giving me permission to do what it takes to be more with Him, so that I can be more who He wants me to be— more at rest in the quiet.

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. Is the Father whispering in your ear? Is there a crowd to dismiss? I would love to know that I’m not alone in this…

I had big plans this morning.

A long list of to-do’s on a project I want finished in the next few days. To get it done I’ve been up extra early every morning, focusing on what needs doing, falling in bed at the end of the day so tired all I feel is numb.

I thought I needed to work this relentlessly… for God… for my husband… for the ministry to parents we lead together.

I’ve pushed away Phil’s hints that maybe it can wait, that I’m trying too hard, that this pushing isn’t worth what it does to me.

Surely, I thought, God wants this now. He needs this book to inspire parents. All these interruptions just need to be managed better, I need to be more organized, move faster, push myself just a little harder to eek out a little more.

Then this morning something changed.

A friend had sent a homemade candle in a canning jar along with a bag full of fresh greens from his garden. This friend is under real pressure, the kind that only a single dad with a heart full of love for his children can understand.

Me, I’m under pressure because I chose it.

As I lit that little candle and watched it flicker in the shadows of my cabin in the woods— its fragrance reminding me of lemons and verbena and salads fresh from the earth—I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d found the time to make something beautiful for his friends.

A song of my childhood sounded like the tinkle of a music box to my ears that hear nothing,

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…

let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. 

And then His words filtered through the lingering melody and I heard,

In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it… those who were His own did not receive Him…

John 1v 4,5,11

His own had missed His coming into their world.

And for just a moment so had I. Caught up in serving Him, I’d somehow forgotten.

I’d pushed myself past my God-tuned rhythm and tried to be better, faster, more disciplined and committed and… I’d become tense and uptight and too tired to be who He made me to be.

I am not a super-achiever. I am not a multi-tasking, amazing spinner of many plates at the same time. When I try, I leave a trail of broken china and love-deprived people behind.

God made me slow. A ponderer. A delighter in beauty. A relisher of words. A tidier of cupboards who finds wonder in small things.

That’s who He wants me to be— the true me.

When I rush and manage and go faster than I can, I deprive Him—

and my people— of me. The one He likes just as I am.

I stare outside my window and see the glistening of silk strands in the spruce tree. A spider’s trail.

My dog lies waiting for his walk, his limpid eyes letting me know he’s willing whenever I am. Soon the day will radiate the heat of the almost—summer sun and neither of us will want to go.

Could my list wait? Might He bring inspiration on a platter of trust? Might slowing down to the rhythm of God-in-me be just the way to what He wants… for me, for mine, for the work He’s assigned for me to do?

Everything changes with that love-made candle. Such a simple thing. I am righted once again, smiling, listening.

Maybe I won’t get my project done on my self-imposed timeline. Maybe it will take longer and end up better just because I listened to the tune of His song for me.

Maybe I’ll go on a walk right now and listen just a little more.

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. What are you learning about your own pace? Are you slow like me or a sprinter who loves the feeling of rushing between rests? I’d love to hear.

A man was attacked by robbers, stripped, beaten, left half dead by the side of the road.

A priest passed by on the other side of the road. A Levite passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan saw him, came where the man was, took pity on him, went to him, bandaged his wounds and took care of him.

Taken from Luke 10v30-36

Sometimes, in real life, we get beat up.

Stripped bare. Left by the side of a lonely road.

All our dreams and work and wishes lay scattered around us, mocking the hope we once held so lightly.

We blame others, we blame ourselves, we blame God.

Where were You?

In that place of brokenness, He comes quietly. In fact, in that hurting place, our groanings outshout His whispers. We cannot hear Him and so we think He is isn’t speaking, that He’s left us wounded and alone, that God is silent in our suffering.

And yet… somewhere in the quiet of our souls we know He is there, He must be there. There in our mess and in our mixed-upness, He waits.

And He sends Samaritans. Not the uber-holy, super successful, got-it-all-together saints. Just the plain ones. The ones who’ve been hurt and wondered why. The ones who’ve blown it and failed and been put back together. The ones without answers.

They come with their oil and wine, the medicine of welcome. They see us. They change course for us, coming to where we are. They tenderly bandage the wounds we cannot bring ourselves to look at lest we faint from the hurt.

They take care of us, for God.

 In the quiet this morning, I hear God telling me that this— more than anything else I might do— is Kingdom work. This is worth wearing myself out for, this being Jesus to one left wounded by the side of the road.

I hear Him whispering that bringing wine to refresh and oil to soothe is my calling.

Why me? Why can’t I be one of the priests, all holy and righteous, a shining example of perfectness? Why can’t I be one of those set aside Levites whose calling is all about order and doing things right and telling everyone how to be good?

He smiles.

I see the twinkle in His eye as He looks at me, and this is what I hear:

Your story, Di, is your beauty. The hurt, the brokenness, your failure, these are the tools I am using to carve you into who I want you to be— who I need you to be.

I know it’s true— the truest truth. That…

I am most useful to the Master when I am all His and all about Him.

Not when I am good.

Not when I excel.

Not when I am anything worth lauding or applauding.

I know, but I know, but I know that the Father needs a whole army of people who will speak for Him in the kindness of coming and seeing and feeling and bandaging and taking care of His broken ones.

Hmm.

Could that be your calling too? Might you, as you travel about your day, keep your eye scanning the side of the road just in case He’s wanting you to take care of one of His wounded ones for a while?

In the quiet of this morning, I say yes. I leave space on my list, a little extra room just in case. I tidy my home in anticipation of who might need the safety of this cottage in the woods. A friend? A stranger? A child?

I tell Him it’s okay to use my not-so-nice story even though I wish I’d been a better woman so I could say, “Just do life the way I do and you’ll be happy too.”

But I didn’t, so I can’t, and so I give Him who I am right now to use any way He wishes.

I wonder if your story is just the one He needs for someone laying beaten and robbed on the side of the road?

And I wonder what would happen if we all said, Okay, God, show me who and I’ll be there with bandages and hope.

From a willing heart,

Diane

P.S. Has someone taken care of you… for God? Or has God used your not-so-nice story to bring hope to a wounded one? I would love to hear how He is working.

The Quiet Series: Too Weak 

“… They were all trying to frighten us, thinking,

“Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”

But I prayed,

“Now strengthen my hands.”

Nehemiah 6v9

Now… strengthen my hands.

God has given me work to do, of that I have no doubt. That work gets me up early every morning, eager to get to it. It is a vocation that I love, but it’s still work. And sometimes the work wears me out.

Yesterday was one of those worn out days.

And so I slept in, drug myself sluggishly to my cabin in the back where most of my work is done, dinked around, wasted time. I started things, then abandoned them at the slightest hint of resistance, leaving a trail of messes along the path of my day.

It happens to me sometimes. More often than it should.

Yesterday’s malaise had nothing to do with my work… and everything to do with me. Sure, I was tired. I didn’t feel good, hadn’t slept well, needed a bit of rest.

More than anything else, I just lost steam… why is that? 

And so I got up this morning, asking my Father. I came to Him needing to hear, wanting to know so that this day would be different. I asked timidly, like a naughty school-girl expecting a finger in my face.

Instead of reprimand, I heard compassion, grace. I sensed His heart, so much nicer towards me than my own heart is.

I heard Him say… that He knows how that thick wall of opposition sometimes slows us down… to a crawl.

While I was lambasting myself for being lazy… He was seeing the unseen.

He knows what I didn’t even notice— those enemies of my soul, disguised and hidden— who, behind a smokescreen of silence— threaten, defeat, frighten, and discourage me.

And you.

Nehemiah knew them as strength stealers. Paul knew them as conflict conspirators.

Sometimes, as in Nehemiah’s story, the strength-stealers come in the form of a letter… and e-mail… a phone call.

At other times, those joy-zappers come wrapped in guilt. Or comparison. The fiery darts that defeat us before we even begin.

Mamas know those enemies too. The ones that keep you up at night, wrapped in worry.

The voices that scream inadequate! with every mistake you make.

But here’s what woke up my morning: all Nehemiah did, when he realized what was really going on was this—He prayed a simple prayer, with simple words:

Now, strengthen my hands. 

And so as this new day beckons with new lists, new worries, new challenges, I bring these simple words to the Father.

Now, strengthen my hands.

And then I come again and bring these words for you, all the wearied ones, the ones I know and love, whose work sometimes wears them out:

Now, Father, right now, will you strengthen her hands?

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. May I pray for you? If you will let me know in the comments, it would be my honor to bring this simple prayer to the Father who hears.

P.S.S.  Read Nehemiah’s story in Nehemiah 6, and Paul’s story in Acts 9:19-29 because what He did for these men, He offers to you— and me.

(Image by Abi Porter)