Down for Maintenance
When I’m squeezed, I want people to see Jesus. That will only happen if I’m scheduling downtime for maintenance.
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I brought my Keurig out of storage recently. It stopped working on the second cup of coffee I tried to make. My printer stopped printing PDFs this week. The keyboard on my cell phone stopped appearing. And the lock on my driver’s side car door only functions properly part of the time.
Throw in the fact that I’m battling a health insurance company, two cable/internet companies, a pharmacy, a pharmaceutical company, a cell phone company and probably another company or two I’m forgetting, and I can feel overwhelmed.
You’ve got your list too. I mean, this is just life, right?
Inherently, I know everything has to be maintained, but when I’m already feeling stretched pretty thin, my patience is sometimes lacking. That’s on me. Once I step back and have a chance to think, I realize my lack of patience is a good indicator that I need maintenance.
More solitude.
More silence.
More white space.
More music.
More prayer.
More worship.
More repentance.
More of the Word.
More contemplation.
More reading.
We’re all busy. We all have responsibilities. But if we don’t take the time to tend to our souls, then we’re going to fail to represent Christ well when the inevitable battles do come.
When I’m squeezed, I want people to see Jesus. That will only happen if I’m scheduling downtime for maintenance.
Here are some tidbits you might find interesting this week:
Make time this weekend to read this article by Emma Scheib: Finding Peace.
I don’t know why we always need to be reminded of this but we do: You Don’t Need to be on Social Media to Make a Difference in the World.
“It occurs to me it is not so much the aim of the devil to lure me with evil as it is to preoccupy me with the meaningless. ” -Donald Miller
I learned about a service called Storyworth from author James Magruder. Basically, you choose 52 questions to send to your father via email through the StoryWorth website. At the end of that time, it compiles all his answers and prints them in a book. Love it!
A friend of mine uses pen and paper to schedule her day. She jots down her “Big 3” and aims to accomplish those tasks. It’s a simple but effective method.
If you enjoy this free weekly newsletter (which will remain free), consider becoming a paying subscriber for $5 per month. Paying subscribers also receive a monthly, long-form essay that goes deeper than the weekly posts do. This month, you’ll receive an essay about the joy (and philosophy) of being a regular somewhere.
Lee, I suspect we all put ourselves on overload pretty often. Is it a function of aging, as we see all our unfinished assignments? Do we make ourselves tired just thinking about everything we wanted to do? Thanks for reminding us that it's OK to step back, take another look at our list, and make sure we have our priorities in order.
God's blessings on your weekend. I pray that when you come back from your rest time you discover the Lord has already solved some of those problems.