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Understanding Our Journey

July 21, 2010

Days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years; awake at six and back down at ten or eleven (check the calendar before you go to sleep so you know what is facing you the next day). Much of what I do between the hours is forgotten; at the end of the week when someone asks me, “how was your week,” I often can’t remember how it was.

Proverbs (in the Bible) today, is urging me to do more than “live out” my days: “The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way” (Proverbs 14:8).

Do I, do you understand your way?


  • Do you ever stop doing, doing, doing. Just stop? I don’t mean the kind where you drop onto the couch and flick on the TV. I mean the kind where you choose to stop and think with purpose.

  • Do you pause between one thing and another? Or do you just blaze ahead, solve your dilemma, find a new job (*This from a Twitter today: “Heard this recently: “The average person under 40 will change jobs every 20 months for the rest of their lives.” Pete MacIntosh), latch onto a new relationship, move on, move out, move in, move over? A certain group of monks always observe the “moments between moments” and we would do well to do the same, to understand where we have just been and where we should be next (not just could be).

  • Do you ask yourself good questions? I don’t mean the heat-of-the-moment ones, I mean the smart, unhurried ones that actually help you understand you, your life, your world?

  • Do you ask yourself good questions? I don’t mean the heat-of-the-moment ones, I mean the smart, unhurried ones that actually help you understand you, your life, your world?

  • What’s going on in that inner world of yours these days?

There’s many-a-day where I just get through it and get it done; but something is amiss in all of that; something tugs at me and calls me.

This morning I was thinking about all of this while swimming laps at JBMAC. The first half is me working way too hard to get across the pool (do not imagine style and grace), but the second half I just put the fins on, get out a board and I swim, head down, staring at the blue tiles at the bottom of the lane; and I think. No one says a word to me in the sanctuary of the water; and so, back and forth and back and forth, thinking about this Proverb.

A whisper: a word comes to mind and I am more than a little excited to unlock it. That’s how I find God works in me; sometimes one word out of His Words. Sometimes a little thought and it sends me somewhere, on a journey. It doesn’t always happen this way, I don’t always feel like going on a journey. I miss words; I miss nudges. Sometimes I am just distracted; sometimes I really do not want to hear from God. But when my ears are open; things come to mind and I turn it over and over and hope that the seed finds fertile soil in my heart.

Even if we don’t travel anywhere in particular, we are travelers; pilgrims. We are designed to discover things – far away things or things in our own backyard; things that are distant from us, things that are in front of us. Mike did a great paper on this topic, based on a book he read called the “Art of Pilgrimage” (if you want to know more, go to http://www.mybookreviews.info). He quotes in his paper,

“We all have a longing to discover something and unfortunately we can travel and not actually discover, we can put on miles and not see anything. Mark Twain says that travel has a way to eliminate narrow-mindedness, but this requires of the traveler a kind of introspective; as she covers the ground outwardly, so she advances fresh interpretations of herself inwardly.”

And this is what Proverbs is calling us to: fresh interpretations. How fresh are mine? Am I living on interpretations handed off to me? Knocked into me? Borrowed from others? Am I interpreting life based on correct understanding or out of my illusions or disillusionment? Would my whole life change if I had a new interpretation of it?

The way you tell me to live, God, is always right; help me understand it so I can live to the fullest. (Psalm 119:144 MSG)

– Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

Afterword: The word that came to mind as I swam was the word “consider;” that might not seem like anything to you, but it is my white rabbit. If you want to know where it is taking me; here is what I did next. I made a list of “consider the” phrases found in the Bible and I am going to take a run at each one over the next weeks. Join me if you like; its a work in progress. If you want to follow along, visit http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com Read More

Carefully and Continuously

July 12, 2010

I don’t even want to write about this one today:

“The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” Proverbs 13:4

Don’t you hate it when you know what you ought to do but don’t feel like doing it? You know that what you ought to do will have a good result in the end, it is just that the thing you ought to do is quite often not that appealing.

Yesterday, Brian referred to the Law of Causality in his message; the definition is as follows:

“Causality is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is a consequence of the first.” (Wikipedia)

Side note: To me, it sounds kinda obvious, but do a little reading on it and you will see that philosophers have philosophized about the Law of Causality to oblivion.

Proverbs 13:4 urges us to be diligent so that our desired outcome will be realized. Diligence, in case you are interested, is “careful and continued work.”

See, that is the problem right there. Unless you are like my mother who thrives on doing the jobs no one else will do—the unrewarding ones that take a long time and are really picky and tedious and boring—“careful and continued work” isn’t particularly attractive.

Diligence needs a zippy marketing campaign to draw us in a little more. For example, here is a picture I found that came with the caption, “Cleaning The Toilet Can Be Fun!”

Some guy hooked up a drill to his toilet brush. So, maybe not the best idea, but at least he is making an attempt at jazzing up what is otherwise a tedious job.

Or there are the guys who thought they could make vacuuming fun by turning it into a game:

(actually, you should read their blog: http://tinyurl.com/29dsk8z. They have 10 suggestions for making vacuuming fun or, “fun-er”)

As I am writing this, I am realizing something. It is hard to be diligent because it lacks the fun factor. Anything that is “careful and continued” has a bit of an assembly-line sound to it. If someone says to me, “Hey, do you want to do something carefully and continuously for a while and see what happens?” I will be inclined to take their temperature.

At the same time, the Proverb says that the sluggard craves. Am I the only one relating to this? I mean there are things I genuinely want to see happen in my life—good things, smart things. Some of these things I go after, but I definitely have a list of things I crave that I don’t see happen because the Law of Causality proves that my lack of effort equals lack of results.

I like how the Proverb ends: fully satisfied. If we apply some diligence, we will be fully satisfied. Doesn’t that just sound good to say?

“I am fully satisfied because I have put in my full effort; I have been diligent and I can now sit back and look at what has come as a result.”

Does that ever sound simple. In reality, all it takes is 5 little words to kill the momentum: I don’t feel like it. If I look at what I do, much of it is based on how I feel. I feel happy so I do this. I feel hungry for something in particular so I eat that. I feel energetic about something specific so I do that specific thing. But ask me to do something that falls into my “dislike” category and I am not really going to feel like doing that, so I won’t unless I have no other option.

The problem with having no other option (and you can put yourself in place like that – rehab, bootcamps, programs, structures, prison) is that someone else is governing your behavior.

To be diligent is an act of free-will, to be a sluggard is an act of free-will. To crave is an option. To be satisfied is an option.bIt is frustratingly simple and simply frustrating at the same time.

I just have to pray, God, help me with those areas I tend to be lazy in. Help me to change that mindset of being governed by what I feel like doing and move me towards acting on what is good. Help me to be “diligent about being diligent.” I don’t want to miss out of any of what you have for me simply because of a lack of effort on my part.

So today…what is that saying?

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

—Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

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