Thursday, February 10, 2011

Day 4: Bringing life to order

(In order to understand this post read Feb 7th's blog "Bringing life to order"

Yesterday started in a flurry. I went to pick up those tools (mentioned yesterday) and was 15 minutes late to my first appointment only to find out that the guy who was going to use those tools wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be coming. Do you ever feel like your time falls into that passage in Haggai 1:6 where it says, “And he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes”?

God, why does my time end up in a “bag with holes?” That passage says, Thus says the LORD, consider your ways. Well, I’m considering them! (listening) Hmmm, I was conversing via email yesterday about computers and how they can give you a sense of connection with the outside world… but they can be addicting! Confession: any spare time left when I got home last night (was gone all day!) was spent on the internet gathering empty knowledge. I ordered a book this week called “The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains” Here is an excerpt of a review

“He begins with a feeling shared by many who have spent the last decade online. "I'm not thinking the way I used to think," Carr tells us. "I feel it most strongly when I'm reading." He relates how he gets fidgety with a long text. Like others, he suspects that the Internet has destroyed his ability to read deeply. "My brain," he writes, "wasn't just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the Net fed it."

Having spent some time studying brain development this makes perfect sense to me. The good news is, your brain is like any muscle. You can exercise it any time in your life and have success developing it differently. I want to whine, “but I was tired and I don’t like TV with the constant bombardment of noise, sex and violence.” I didn’t want to do anything more. (listening)

The sense I have is of being shell shocked. I work with and hear the stories of many women who are hurting. There was a time in my life when little if anything impacted me so I consider it one of God’s great successes in my life that I am impacted by people’s pain. I cry, It matters to me, I “feel” the pain I see. Sometimes the injustice makes me spitting MAD! Its passion and I am thrilled to have it but sometimes that same passion is exhausting. It can leave me shell shocked at the end of the day. So God what do I do with that? (listening)… a simple answer “rest in Me”

Hmmm God, I don’t think I know how to rest much less in You. help!

Daily report:

1) (bsmtg w God) yup

2) (blog) yup

3) (ARK) God teach me to open my eyes. I’m thinking of that song by Brandon Heath “Give me your eyes” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5AkNqLuVgY

4) (Cln smthg) cleaned the toilet… that’s all but it was something

5) (Odr smthg) does getting tools and paying the bill I was supposed to pay yesterday count?

6) (Bk) nope

7) (Fam) took time to listen

8) (Me) ??? (I have decided the internet doesn’t count L)

9) (Mnstry) I left a busy day at the Ministry house feeling God’s passion but also His hope. It was a good day.

10) (rest) needs to be re-directed

1 comment:

  1. I agree with the shell-shocked. I know I can enjoy a book...at least I used to eat them up like candy. But now, when I get home and want to rest, instead of grabbing the nearest book and delving in as I would as a child, I pick up the computer...desiring less engagement. But what is rest? There is rest as in sleep; rest as in non-physical; but also I think rest as in space for the brain to process. I think my brain processes more when I am still and spinning wool or reading a book than it is when on the computer. When on the computer, I think my brain just checks out. Is it atrophying then?

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