Ever feel like life gets too busy? Sometimes I feel that way. There are times when I get so anxious about the things to do and the deadlines I have to face that I get frozen and don't feel like doing anything. It's a terrible feeling.
A group of men from our church started meeting together to read a book by Patrick Morley. It's called, The Man In The Mirror: Solving The 24 Problems Men Face. I hadn't read this book before even though I have owned it for about five years. The first chapter is entitled, "The Rat Race." This chapter stuck out to me. Simultaneously, H (my wife) had been thinking about a women's study with church with a book called The Unhurried Life. Sounds like a good book to me. Seems like our thinking aligned with what was going on in our lives. Seems like we need to learn how to live our lives and make better choices as to how to spend our time.
One fine morning I brought my car for an oil change. It was a full experience: I met this nice guy in the waiting room, the mechanic tried to sell me $300 worth of preventative maintenance, I resisted a majority of these "improvements", and I got a free coffee. After all this, I headed to work. As I was driving up a hill I noticed the car was going kind of fast without me pressing on the pedal- the kind of "fast" that raised my suspicions since I was heading uphill. As I headed over the hill, unable to figure out what was worrying me about the car, it hit me. My gas pedal was stuck down. No matter how hard I braked, I would only be able to slow the car down but not stop it. I was scared. I did some quick thinking and plopped the transmission into neutral and coasted to a stop with the engine revving. Turns out I needed to press the gas again (and unlock it) before it would release, and since that experience everything has been fine. I knew this was an event to learn from. I felt so out of control. Lost at the mercy of this machine. Unable to experience full control of my path.
My life feels like that sometimes. Things get so busy and seemingly out of control. I go passive and just go along with life rather than being assertive and exhibiting some control over things. Maybe that was a conversion experience for me. Since that quarter mile of fast and furious fear, I've felt like I want to be in control of my life. This gift of life is so precious and worth living to the full that I want to exhibit the power God has granted to me over in my own life.
Part of my assertive living is taking time to reflect. I want to make time for reflecting on life. Sometimes this is called self-care. Blogging helps me do that. It helps me think and reflect and draw conclusions in my thinking. Inside I'll feel more settled if I do this kind of reflective writing once and a while. So at the two year anniversary of my last entry, I'd like to begin this anew.
So let us try this blog thing again. Or as the psalmist says in Psalm 19:14 (HCSB):
"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to You, LORD, my rock and my Redeemer."
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