The past week has been terribly busy. Thankfully Jaci is visiting with her sisters
in Pella so I am able to spend more time doing what needs to be done than I
might otherwise without adversely affecting my relationship with her.
I am in the middle of the first round of tests for my
classes. I am teaching five different
classes and one of them is multivariable calculus, a class I have not
previously taught. Consequently I have
no previous tests or lesson plans on which to fall. To complicate matters it has been nearly
forty years since I took the class myself so I spend hours preparing for each
lecture, trying to find ways to explain the new concepts in ways that my
students will be able to understand and find meaningful. I find that I awaken in the middle of the
night dreaming about calculus and then have difficulty falling back
asleep. The combination of a busy
schedule and a lack of sleep is beginning to take its toll.
My knee has been hurting for the past week so I have not
had my normal run each morning. The
distraction of my school responsibilities has kept me from my regular time of
devotional reflection. Both of these
activities have a calming influence on me so when they are not presence my
level of stress and frustration mounts.
Last night we had our first choir practice for the new
church year. After our rehearsal our
director, Faith, shared a devotional by Oswald Chambers in which he stressed
the importance of maintaining a relationship with God if we expect to effect
the world around us in a way that will reveal the character of God. Chambers’ writing was based upon Genesis
13:3-4 where it says that Abram pitched his tent between Bethel, the house of
God, and Ai, which represented the world around him. He realized that in order to affect the world
he needed to be close to God. I was
convicted to return to my previous habit of regular morning devotions.
Today I turned to my assigned chapter in my devotional book
and noted the assigned scriptures for the week included Genesis 13. I read some of the quotes in the book and this
excerpt, from Hallowed Be This House
by Thomas Howard, caught my attention.
“Somehow we have gotten swept into a millrace, and it’s nonstop flailing
and thrashing just to keep ourselves from drowning. The sheer necessities of modern life sweep us
farther and farther from any sense that it is all hallowed, really. What are we to do?” This is exactly what I feel like this week
and it also conjured up memories of sixteen years ago when Jaci’s sister,
Linda, committed suicide. I was using
the same devotional book that year and this quote caught my attention because
Linda and Fred, her husband, lived on a street called Millrace Avenue. I decided to go back and read my journal
entries from that time and I was surprised by how my life seems to be in the same
place. What follows is my journal entry
from September 25, 1997.
I feel like I am so far behind in my work
that I will never catch up. I stay up
late and get up early trying to get my tests made, and then corrected, and then
proceed to fall asleep trying to meet the demands of my daily routine. The first paragraph of my reading describes
my situation fairly well. It is an
excerpt from Hallowed Be This House
by Thomas Howard. “Somehow we have
gotten swept into a millrace, and it’s nonstop flailing and thrashing just to
keep ourselves from drowning. The sheer
necessities of modern life sweep us farther and farther from any sense that it
is all hallowed, really. What are we to
do?” My assigned scripture reading was
Genesis 13 this morning and as I read the chapter I noticed something about
Abram. He was in the process of moving
from Egypt to the Negev, undoubtedly a busy time, when he began to have trouble
getting along with his nephew Lot. Abram
could have worked harder and jockeyed for a position that would guarantee his
financial and personal success but the Bible clearly states, in two different
verses, the focus of his life. Verses
3-4 read, “From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel,
to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he
had first built an altar. There Abram
called on the name of the Lord.” After
giving Lot the choice of where he would like to live, and getting what appeared
to be the short end of the stick, he did not mope about the raw deal he got but
worshipped God. Verse 18 records his response;
“So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at
Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord.”
There are two thoughts that come to me this
morning. The first is that I need to
return to the place I have been earlier, a place where I first built an altar
to the Lord. In the midst of my busyness
I need to lay it all out before God and simply worship him for who he is,
leaving the details of my life entrusted to his care. The second thought is that I need to ignore
the situations in which I find myself and move myself to a place of
worship. Rather than getting my knickers
in a twist about my circumstances, I need to focus on God and his agenda. The Bible promises that if I seek first
the kingdom of God, all these other things will be added to me. Lord, may I trust your word and, more
specifically, trust you to fulfill your will in my life. Let me give up trying to control my life and
let me rest in your provision for my needs.
Open my eyes to see your way and give me a calm spirit that entrusts my
life to your care.
God’s word to me then is the same as his word to me this
morning; return to me and trust me with your future. In many ways my life is very different today
than it was sixteen years ago.
Unfortunately, with regards to staying close to God and trusting God, I
am a slow learner.
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