Uncategorized Michael Krahn on 06 Nov 2009 09:14 pm
Why Am I Here? (The Medaille House Journals - 2)
***This is a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Part 1 can be found here.***
Busyness often steals my joy. It’s a temporary theft, but it is usually unnecessary. I start too many journeys – good, productive journeys – without first fully fueling up. As a result, I get to the finish line on fumes and collapse shortly after. I rest, not because I make a wise choice to do so but because I have no other choice: I MUST rest or I will become damaged.
It is interesting note that Jesus practiced solitude either before or after particularly engrossing encounters. In his book Spiritual Disciplines For The Christian Life, Donald Whitney points out a number of instances in scripture where Jesus retreats to a time of solitude.
“To be like Jesus,” he says, “we must discipline ourselves to find times of silence and solitude. Then we can find the spiritual strength through these disciplines, as Jesus did.”
There is a proper relief of stress after these events, but there is also a temptation to treat oneself to “a few days off”. For me, after a week of sermon prep and preaching, a talk at a conference, or the successful completion of a large event, that means I am less task-oriented in the following week.
During a week of stress that culminates in accomplishment, I fall behind on all types of reading, and so I take the following week to read – online (blogs and other content) and offline (books, newspapers, etc.). But I suspect what I should be doing, rather than trying to catch up on what I’ve “missed”, is being still, engaging solitude, and also spending unstructured, goal-free time with Anne Marie and the girls.
“Goal-free” and “unstructured”. Normally, “goal-oriented” and “structured” are the two phrases that characterize my modus operandi, and for the most part this has served me well. But it is also a frequent source of pride. I DO get a lot done, and there is a lot of variety in what I accomplish, but I often forget whom I am doing it for.
Well, that’s not quite true – I often know very well that I am doing it for my own glory, my own reputation, my own fulfillment rather than doing it in such a way that at the end I can honestly say “To God be the glory”.
My own glory comes before God’s far too often, and at these times the scripture convicts me that says that we fall short of the glory of God. I fall short, not because there is no glory, but because I misappropriate it.
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on 07 Nov 2009 at 2:00 am # Kevin Abell
Hi Micheal;
I have very few goals and tend to fly by the seat of my pants. Maybe between the two of us, if we could be added together, we might make one decently balanced person.
on 07 Nov 2009 at 5:39 pm # Kevin Burgess
I have a mentor that once told me. “We live our lives doing a lot of good things. Often at the expense of other good things. There comes a point when we have to look at each of our “things” and decide which are the truly NOBLE things and focus on those.”