Peacefully Productive

I didn’t realize how productive the day was. There were ups: we carted the cartons of Christmas decorations back up to the attic and I spoke to a trusted friend about what I perceive as the calling on my life; receiving a lift from his encouragement to continue with Cafeteria Covenant. (He liked the title and also wrote me an excellent review of well SEASONED for Amazon.) There were also some downs: sending a carefully worded birthday greeting to a widow of a few weeks. There were outs: having an early dinner out before Gary went to work taking college basketball photos and shopping for Superbowl "snacks.” There were old familiar tasks: doing laundry for the zillionth time and revisiting the twenty-year-old lyrics of a song. There were also first time tasks: sending the updated lyrics and a new arrangement to a love song contest, contracting a professional music reviewing service and my first time ever making waffles, for a late night supper when Gary got home.

Yet, in spite of all this activity and a dozen other little things tucked in between, it was a very peaceful day. So peaceful that I sat back from the computer keys after playing some Words With Friends last night and thought, ‘I feel like I didn’t get much done today…’ As I began to accredit the day’s accomplishments, I was amazed.

I like that. I like letting God lead and succeed, I like moving from one task to another in the rest of God. I like being able to give Him praise for being who He is and doing what He promises: to lead, to guide, to work through me in the small and the big things.

I make lists, but usually they end up just being a reference in case I find myself at a standstill with “nothing” to do, or if I really only want to make one trip to the store without forgetting “something.” Mostly, I ask for God to lead, guide and succeed through me. It’s a grand adventure in living, and at the end of the day, the most satisfying way to live. If someone were to question why I didn’t do something, I can unashamedly say, I wasn’t led to. God knows what needs to be done, and if I just follow His lead, it will all get done.

This dichotomy between rest and work is delicate, and yet simple, when we learn to trust that He truly lives in us. It is something we need to work at every day…

⁹There still remains a place of rest, a true Sabbath, for the people of God ¹⁰because those who enter into salvation’s rest lay down their labors in the same way that God entered into a Sabbath rest from His.

¹¹So let us move forward to enter this rest, so that none of us fall into the kind of faithless disobedience that prevented them from entering. ¹²The word of God, you see, is alive and moving; sharper than a double-edged sword; piercing the divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow; able to judge the thoughts and will of the heart.

(Hebrews 4:9-11 The Voice)