Slow, savory pace Part 2

When we rush, race through life; it becomes a blur.  When we wake up in the morning with a to-do list that is unending, already feeling behind, it takes a toll on our soul.  When we struggle to rest and relax, our life becomes over-filled with many distractions.  I think of Martha, her good-intentions to be the host she truly felt Jesus deserved and her fuming frustration that her sister, Mary, sought another way (sibling rivalry is as ancient as Scripture).  Jesus invites her to another way.  A way that is slow, savory.  A way that says, we don't have everything figured out.  A way that takes seriously a great joke I just heard:

A pastor went to his Spiritual Adviser struggling trying to find meaning and purpose in life.  He told the adviser about all the amazing things he was doing at the church.  He had started new groups; he was preaching more sermons; he was writing a blog.  (There might be some self-revealing in this post).  But, he also felt drained sometimes.  What should he do??

The Spiritual Adviser took a long, slow, deep breath.  Silence filled the room, hanging and hovering in the air.  When the adviser spoke, he simply said.

"I have good news and better news.  The good news is that God has already sent a Savior into the world.  And the better news is that it is not you!"

I need to remember that.  I need to walk that line where I do what I can where I can...but that I cannot be all things to all people ~ another great contradicting cliche to put alongside the post from last time!  In order to realize where I am called to climb and which mountains are not mine, I need prayer.  I need time to listen for God to speak and sing to my very soul.  Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation in the 1600 once said, "I am very busy today...I must pray more!"  How often do we do the exact opposite?  Essentially say to God, "Try and keep up while I cross off my to-do list!"  A slow, savory pace is one that takes one step...and then the next step...and then the next step.  Less concerned with the destination and more about making sure we are steeped, surrounded, sustained by the Spirit.

This is where I find Thomas Merton's prayer so helpful
 My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

My invitation to you...today...is to take this prayer one sentence at a time.

Where are you going?
How far down life's road do you really see?
How well do you know yourself?
Can you trust in God's grace that the desire to love God really does love God?
That when we feel lost, we can acknowledge fear, without it being the ONLY thing that controls us?
To be...
       To breathe....
             To become what God is still fashioning and forming us to be, for God is not finished with us yet,

May that promise stir and swirl within you with more than a trace of God's grace.