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Psalm 36:4 NLT
‘They lie awake at night, hatching sinful plots. Their actions are never good. They make no attempt to turn from evil.’
It has taken many years to make my peace with God’s invitation to pursue the way of the contemplative hermit. Every time I give the big “yes”, I am swamped with invitations and “essential” things to do that disturb the very rhythm I am seeking to establish in the home. Patience is not a natural virtue, nor is resting in the silence and the stillness. Good news is that even for the most active among us – I include myself here – this is a way of life that can be learned.
In the past, I would lie awake for hours worrying about details I wanted to control the outcome of at work. All that anxiety was of no benefit, although I struggled to control, more out of a need to protect myself from criticism and failure.
On one occasion I had been through a tortuous meeting carefully managed by someone else, and every outcome I wanted to manage was eluding me. I felt disempowered and vulnerable; deep anger towards this other person welled up within me. I slept not one wink, and the next day was completely unsuccessful in my attempts to stamp my mark upon the outcome. What was so important back then is now irrelevant, yet those feelings were intense and took hold of my whole being. As I fretted all night long, my mind also created evil scenarios into which I inserted my main protagonist. I lost sight of the original objective and became distracted with my own feelings and personal loss of control.
Learning to give control to God isn’t easy. However, failure to discover that art only intensifies the delusion that we are managing our own environment. Then we are destined to live a restless life, compared to the peace and rest that is God’s gift to all who follow him. We may struggle to insulate ourselves from events that we do not control, but once we can rest in the reality that God has hold of our life and that he will do us no harm – what a relief!
QUESTION: What thoughts occupy your mind and keep you from sleeping?
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you that you care for me and that I can cast all my cares and anxieties on to you.
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