When Priorities Get Scrambled

Have you ever had a schedule change that seemed to pull the rug right out from under you?  But this time, instead of falling on my back, gasping for air, the schedule change forced me to see my priorities with new eyes.  But, I needed a Sabbath to see it.

That’s what happened three weeks ago as my writing slowed to a stop.

So, this is what I’m praying today:

From Ezekiel 36:16-36 “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

What keeps hitting me through these sentences is that all this is God’s action.

He is making me clean.

He will cleanse me from idols.

He will put a new heart and new spirit in me.

He is removing my heart of stone and making it soft flesh.

He is putting His Spirit in me and moving me to follow His decrees.

Three weeks ago I started taking a Sabbath again.

No marriage can survive on quickies and with children who wake up at an ungodly hour and the inevitable wrestling three children to bed, I was losing any extended time with God.

I was surviving on short sips of living water when I clearly needed a good dousing.

What came was the inevitable Spiritual Dehydration and you can look shocked here: my priorities got viciously scrambled.

The truth is,  I can’t write from a place of drought unless of course, I’m writing about drought…and who wants to choke from that kind of sand-storm?

Anyways, Sabbath.  Four to Six hours of quiet.  Books and a journal.  A Bible on my iPhone, worship music on my ipod and time to BE.

Sabbath for me means very little agenda. Sometimes it means healthy food and a nap.  Most of the time Sabbath means enough quiet that I can keep an ear pressed up toward God.

I often ask the Lord the day before to shape what He wants my Sabbath to look like.

There’s often a bookstore, a coffee shop, a hot mug of orange-blossom green tea, rows of books and did I mention books?

I read.  I journal.  I confess.  I listen.  I evaluate my priorities and then the inevitable happens, this seeker begins to find God as the debris gets slowly raked and shoveled away.

This morning there was no bookstore, just three children ensconced in their fabulous schools, and two and a half hours of silence.

The greatest gift of my Sabbath is that it leaves me thirsty all week long,

hungry for more morsels of God.

by Summer Gross

Today I’m linking with Ann and sharing my thanksgivings:

1. One simple light-filtering-in nap.

2. Two beautiful women, a mama and nona, smiling at me on facetime.

3. Three children Sunday night cuddled and reading…books.

4. Four loads of clean laundry.

5. Five courageous women to Journey with every Thursday.

6. Six o clock workout at the gym and a Monday-morning clear head.

image from www.pebblesandbuttons.com