Busyness and Distraction vs. Advent

My pastor, Kris, challenged us on December 1^st to spend the next 25 days embracing the season of advent. Until recently, that meant little to me. What is advent, anyway? I now understand that it simply means watchful waiting. We are to spend this season waiting on the Messiah. During Advent, we 1) look back on His first coming, 2) look forward to His return at the end of all things, and 3) pay attention to His nearness, even in the mundane. Watchfulness is the theme.

But what does December look like for us? If you’re like me, you scramble to buy and wrap presents and make it to all the Christmas parties you want to attend in addition to your typically overloaded schedule. Kris posed the convicting question: how many opportunities to pay attention do we miss because we’re busy and distracted? We live in a time deficit.

I accepted Kris’s challenge and planned to add ten minutes to my devotional time each morning and use it to simply sit in God’s presence. To rest and breathe, tuning my ear and heart to the gentle—yet powerful—presence of the Comforter whom Jesus sent us. I also committed to reserving Sunday as a day of worship and rest with no task list, no mandatory activities outside the scope of those two goals. I set out to allow my daily 10 minutes of resting in God’s presence and devotion of Sunday to the same to plant in my heart growing seeds of the Shalom that Adam and Eve must have enjoyed before the Fall. What might it be like to continually walk in God’s presence?

It has been 14 days since I accepted Kris’s challenge to embrace the meaning of Advent this month. I have invested those 10 extra minutes to still myself to wait for my Savior more days than not and successfully reserved each Sunday for rest. Yet I was convicted this morning of how miserably I have failed to carry into my daily activities the peace I experience there. The time I spend resting in Jesus’ presence is to me a breath of fresh air. But then I often switch gears and charge into my day trying to tackle it on my own.

As Kris said: This season pulls us away from watchfulness into busyness and distraction. For the next 10 days, I want to pause every time I feel the stress of my busyness and overcome the distraction by inviting Jesus into the activity of that moment and facing it with the strength of His presence. After all, what comfort did God offer to virtually every prophet who was overwhelmed by his task? Those beautiful words, “I am with you.” (Joshua 1:9 is one of many examples.)

What will the next 10 days look like for you? How might you step back from the frantic hustle and bustle to cultivate watchful awareness of Jesus’ presence and Kingdom here, now?

Discerning God’s Will (part 1)

On a previous post, I was asked a question about how to discern God’s will about questions of life direction, such as career and relationship decisions. It’s an important question we all wrestle with, so I’m going to devote a couple of posts to it. Two stories from my life illustrate some key lessons I’ve learned about discerning God’s will. I’ll tell a relationship story this time and a career story next time.

Story #1: To ask her out or not to ask her out, is that the question?

We often get stuck in the immediate outcome of our decision and miss the bigger picture of what God is doing in our lives for His Kingdom.

Years ago I was more anal and perfectionistic than I am today. (Brian S. if you are reading this, I am not claiming to no longer be a perfectionist, so don’t bother commenting.) I was agonizing over whether or not to ask out a close friend. I spent a lot of time praying about it, and He made it clear that He wanted me to ask her out. He had to tell me three times before I worked up the nerve to do it.

I was surprised when her answer was no. Since God had clearly communicated to me that He wanted me to ask her out, I had assumed that she was supposed to say yes (and was tempted to explain this to her, though luckily I either wasn't arrogant enough or wasn't confident enough to try). I was later able to move through the confusion and see ways that He grew me as a man through that experience. It wasn’t about getting a date with her. God wanted to confront my tendency to overthink everything, which was a lack of faith—an attempt to gain control by being prepared.

So often, we set our sights on something we want and ask God to tell us whether or not He wants us to have it. While we are stuck in our tunnel vision, He thinks big picture. How does He want to sanctify us through this situation that we may more effectively magnify His name and reveal His heart to the people in our lives? I just want to know if I should ask her out and if I’ll get a date, but He wants me to embody more of the character of Christ and become the man I was created to be.

Recognizing that His Kingdom is the big picture frees us from being paralyzed by indecision. Because we are part of a greater story and our sanctification is more important than getting an immediate answer, we can continue to be in action while we patiently wait on the Lord to provide or to guide us toward the things we want. Knowing His will is primarily about being transformed, and we can be in constant motion in that arena. Consider Romans 12:1-2.

This leads to a point in my second story, but I’ll save that for the next post. (Subscribe to my blog if you want to receive an email when I publish the second post.)