sitting with the father

it was the end of senior year of high school, and, as you could imagine, discussion of getting away, adventures and the like were pretty much the norm.  being the encouraging yet grounded soul that she was, our literature teacher let us do our thing as class began.  when we quieted down, she leaned against the table at the front of the room and asked us to reflect on one simple question: what do you want to do in your life?

i remember that i didn’t reflect long on my answer.  she proceeded to have each of us read our responses aloud.  everyone had these amazing things they wanted to do, and i remember being somewhat embarrassed to speak up.  “i want to be happy,” i said.  could i have been more cheesy?  but it was so true – i knew that i could do anything if it was rooted in being happy.

oh, but what a challenge that simple task turned out to be.  i started my college years started off doing a great job of being.  however as i got closer to graduation and moved on to the professional world, i got more and more wrapped up in schedules, growth forecasts and performance reports.  professionally, my value was a direct reflection of how much i did.  wanting to do well and be valuable, i became really efficient, getting more done in less time and taking on more responsibility.

it took me 4 years to realize that what i was doing was robbing me of being…and i was the one robbing myself.  i truly loved the things my job allowed me to do; i just didn’t love the person that i was becoming in the process.  i worked too much, i was way too task-oriented, and i rarely allowed myself to ‘just be.’  i couldn’t even watch a movie without doing something else at the same time.  the simple exercise from high school was never far from my mind; i just did a really good job at avoiding it and justifying the doing.

over the past few years i have re-prioritized quite a bit and have worked hard to focus more on ‘being’, but i continue to struggle.  i am a doer; i like accomplishing things.  i like doing things for people.  and to add insult to injury, my blessing and my curse is that i’m actually gifted in organizing and multi-tasking.  “so take that, ‘just being,'” right?  haha

here i am craving time to ‘just be’ for these past 5 months, and i get here to finally just be…and it is one of the most comical experiences he and i have had on the race.  he’s certainly showing me his sense of humor.  i can totally see him just laughing at me as i work on the discipline of solitude; i spend more time telling myself to just stop (praising him for what he’s done; talking to him about what’s going on each day; asking him for guidance; wondering about this or that…) than i do actually being quiet.  but when i do get there, it is awesome.  to just sit with the father and be in his presence is like the silence that you have with your closest friends.  where you don’t have to say a thing, and you still feel like you’ve shared everything you needed to.  to give each other the gift of your time and your heart. 

if it takes me the whole month to re-train my brain not to be validated by what i do and to rest confidently in just being…in listening…in sitting with the father, it will be a month well spent.  of course i hope it doesn’t take that long; that instead, i will learn quickly to be quick to listen and slow to speak.  to be still and know our god.  to know nothing so well as praying, listening and obeying.