Quieting my Heart
As I come to my morning quiet time, the house is still and dark. I look forward to this time every morning and my day just wouldn’t be the same without it. I come to this place and believe God will meet me here. I have faith He is enough for this moment, this day, this life.
For the past year I’ve been trying to start this time with just a few minutes of silence and solitude. A practice suggested by John Mark Comer at Practicing the Way. This has been such a peaceful way to start my day, but it is so hard for me to still my thoughts and just sit quietly in God’s presence. However, with some practice, I am learning to quiet my mind. Then after a few minutes, I begin my prayer time with adoration and gratitude. As worries and thoughts – usually about the day, week, and months ahead, and the friends and family members who fill those days – occupy a place in my heart, I try to mentally lay them before God and surrender them to His care. Then I spend a few minutes reading my Bible and end my quiet time with a few more minutes in prayer.
That’s my ideal morning. But many days (most days) are not so serene. Often my thoughts are running rampant from the minute I wake up. Despite my repeated attempts, I cannot seem to quiet them for more than a minute before I am once again thinking about the worries and trials that fill my small world. While I try to bring these thoughts captive and prayerfully lay them before an omnipotent and omnipresent God, within a few minutes, they are once more unbridled. Soon, I am having a mental conversation with someone at work or someone else on my mind or I am laying out my plans on how to solve my problems. Before long, my quiet time has passed, and I must get ready for work. Sadly, I have spent almost no time actually praying, much less listening and I leave this space feeling as though I have missed an opportunity to visit with a dear friend. My faith for enough has dissolved and I am struggling to have any faith in the day ahead.
Discouraging Changes
That was the case recently. It was my last day off before national adjustments to my job as a rural mail carrier require me to work more hours for less pay.* Although some pay adjustments may have been necessary, the drastic changes have been disheartening. And while I am still thankful for my job, it has been very discouraging to anticipate once more working six days a week. The only prayer I was able to mutter was, “Lord, how am I going to do my job and manage to write anything?
Unable to contain my thoughts, I decided to distract them instead, so I picked up my Bible and opened to the next passage in Mark where I have been reading. As I came to verse 30 in Mark chapter 6, I began to read the familiar story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. But as I read verse 38, I paused for a moment and pondered this passage.
But He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”
Go and See
“Go and see.” Jesus didn’t ask them to gather enough bread to feed the people, nor did he ask them to see if there was enough. He asked them to see what they had. Then he took what they had, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples to put before the people. He didn’t multiply the bread before he divided and distributed it. He blessed it and broke it, and as it passed among the people it was multiplied.
As I read these words on the heels of my desperate prayer, it felt as though they were spoken to me in that dark silence of the morning. “How much time do you have? Wait and see and bring that to me.” Maybe I don’t have the hours I would like to spend at my computer, but as I offer what I have, I trust multiplication to the one who hears even my distracted prayers.
And...Verse 42 and 43 go on to say, “So they all ate and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish.” After the disciples brought all they had to Jesus, he broke it, blessed it, distributed it, and multiplied it. Then there was still plenty left over to feed the disciples.
Faith for Enough
I do not know how God will multiply my time, but I trust that if I offer what I have to Him, He can multiply it and there will still be enough left to do those daily tasks that need to be done. But trust is a hard thing, and I know that God’s multiplication may not be what I envision, so just as I often struggle to quiet my mind each morning, I struggle to trust Him with my time. It may continue be something I have to do over and over. And it will probably – most assuredly – be something I do not do perfectly, but I pray I will persistently come and never cease to offer what I have.
How about you? What do you have? Perhaps you need to go and see or maybe like me, wait and see. I truly believe that just as Jesus fed the five thousand, he has others to feed with what you have to offer. So trust Him to use what you have and leave the multiplication to Him.
*Note: as I post this USPS has delayed implementing the new standards for two more weeks as USPS and the Rural Letter Carriers Association try to reach an agreement regarding these changes.