Moving Slow and Giving God More
The Free Newsletter. {Bonus}
Friends, today I’m sending out this bonus Free Newsletter. I’ve been going through the archives and thought these words might encourage some of you.
This post I originally wrote at a time when our family was walking through hard times. Simultaneously, we were experiencing new life and reasons to celebrate. In this season, perhaps you can relate to the following story.
As I reflect on the past year, many things come to mind.
For our family, it held both the beautiful and the difficult.
It was a time of change and the months held many moving parts. Our work was fulfilling but especially busy. Physical challenges were overwhelming for some of us.
My husband, Mark, who has Crohn's disease, began a new treatment protocol because his body had grown immune to the old medication. The first part of the year was hard for him, but we are grateful for God's healing touch, good doctors, and medical insurance.
As Mark dealt with his own health challenges, his mother (who lived over a thousand miles away) was in and out of the hospital repeatedly. Just before Christmas, she left this world to be with Jesus. Two weeks before, we welcomed our third grandson into the world.
The beautiful and the difficult, and moving slow.
At summer's end, we welcomed my parents back to Oklahoma. After thirty years of living far away, they now live ten minutes from our front door. We are enjoying the opportunities for impromptu meet-ups, football watching, and family birthday celebrations.
In the fall, I taught a course on servant leadership at a Bible school in Asia. While teaching the class and time spent with the students was amazing, the preparation was challenging and time-consuming.
The beautiful and the difficult, and moving slow.
I've just shared highlights from a year that seemed, at times, to spin a bit out of control. Maybe you can relate. And while I am thankful for a life of activity and movement (because what is life without the new and fresh and challenging) I feel the need to slow down—to try moving slow for a change.
Stacked on a table in my home office are at least thirty books I've been planning to read (not to mention the unread e-books on my tablet). Our Christmas tree is still up. It has been so cold here, that I cannot bring myself to go out to the garage and bring down the empty holiday storage containers from the attic. In two weeks, I get to start keeping Grandson #3 once a week when Daughter goes back to work following ‘new baby’ leave.
Every time I walk into my office, I'm reminded of the work tasks undone. As a virtual, at-home worker, it is easy to push things to the back burner. Over the holiday season, I became a master at putting off until tomorrow what I could do today. I now face deadlines that are due, without delay.
In the midst of it all, I feel a strong pull toward moving slow.
During daily devotions, along with Bible reading and prayer, I often include readings from an inspirational book. Currently, that book is The Sacred Slow by Alicia Britt Chole. It is not your typical devotional but an exercise in forcing you to see yourself, get downright honest, and know God on a deeper level. It is a slow process.
"The offerings you present as special gifts are a pleasing aroma to Me; they are My food."Â Numbers 28.2 (NLT)
This verse in Numbers recently jumped off the page at me. While this was an instruction to the children of Israel, I feel the Lord showed me how we can apply this to our life, today. Our offerings are a pleasing aroma to Him. Our worship is what He craves. This is what the God of the universe desires—yes, what He feeds on.
In the coming days—in the midst of all the beautiful and the difficult that is to come—I want to give the Lord what He desires most. The strong impression I have is to achieve it, I must move slow. The movement cannot be hurried. He does not want me to place Him inside my self-made box of God-time. He asks that I include Him in the whole of my life.
The beautiful and the difficult.
What is it He wants from you? We can go rushing in. We can attempt to fit Him in or give Him the left-over bits and pieces. Or, instead, we can follow His plan, which has always been that we let our life be a pleasing aroma—His food—drifting up, as we move through the rhythms of life.
Let's go—moving slow into the days ahead—giving Him more and more. It is, after all, what He desires most.
These words are my creation minus the mechanics of artificial intelligence (AI). You are welcome here!
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.