Chasing

Chasing What?

For many, contentment is just around the corner. Contentment is so close I can almost taste it in a new location, a new job, a new spouse, a new church, a new situation. I am not immune from discontentment, but I am realizing there is another the chase that exhausts me. Sabbath rest always seems just like it is just beyond reach, so I keep reaching and pushing and working to get around the corner so I can be still and know. Rest will come after the work week. Rest will come after Sunday. Rest will come when the soccer season is over. Rest will come after the project. Rest will come when I get to my vacation. Rest will come when I get to my sabbatical. Rest will come when I retire. Rest will come when I die. Even when I was a kid, I said that my favorite Bible verse was Psalm 46.10 "Be still and know that I am God." Now there is nothing wrong with this verse, there is something wrong with me! It would have been more honest to say, "I wish this was my favorite verse. I wish this was my creed." But my operational creed looks more like "Get busy, so you and as many people as possible think that you have all your junk together." That is the opposite of "Be still and know that I am God."

Metanoia

I am reading Eugene Peterson's The Contemplative Pastor (Eerdmans 1989), and he upset me with his chapter "The Unbusy Pastor". 

"The poor man," we say. "He's so devoted to his flock; the work is endless, and he sacrifices himself so unstintingly." But the word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront." (17)

I had this idea that when I got to sabbatical, I would go from busy to unbusy. So far, sabbatical has been more diagnosis than medication. Sabbatical hasn't been 'the' fix, but it has revealed my need for a fix. Sabbatical has been busy. Last week I said to Joy, "When would I have found time to work during these busy days?" I can almost hear some of you, "What an idiot-I don't feel bad for him-gifted generously with a sabbatical, and he is wasting it?" I don't blame you, but I see the kindness of God at work even in this. 

Diagnosis

I've been diagnosed with myocardial bridging, where arteries that are meant to lay on the heart, are instead surrounded by muscle. Exerting the heart chokes the artery. I have a busy heart, spiritually, too. You can take stuff out of the schedule. You can get past the season. You can get to the other side of the week or weekend. You can sit down. You can go on vacation or sabbatical. You can spend half-a-week in the hospital. But if your heart is busy neurotically chasing rest, you will never find it. The chase for rest chokes out the very grace nutrients that are as constant as breathing. Again, Peterson:

"I know I can't be busy and pray at the same time. I can be active and pray; I can work and pray; but I cannot be busy and pray. I cannot be inwardly rushed, distracted, or dispersed. In order to pray I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; to God than to my clamoring ego. Usually, for that to happen there must be a deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the day, a disciplined detachment from the insatiable self." (20) 

So this weekend we were at a soccer tournament near San Diego. We left in the 4am hour on Saturday to get to San Diego by 7am. Samuel and Peter played in 10 soccer games, plus it was Sam's birthday, plus meals, plus travel, plus plans, plus drama, plus, plus, plus. Toward the beginning my old nature said to myself (I should have never listened), "Nathan, forget about rest until Monday, more likely Tuesday, and then there will be so much stuff to catch up on, you might as well put off rest until you die." Then the Spirit of God whispered to me while I was waiting for a game to begin, "You can rest now" So I opened the Word, and was met with the kindness of God. I didn't have to wait until Monday or Tuesday or death. There in the middle of the schedule was an oasis of grace. There were a couple other provisions God planned for me throughout the weekend that settled my busy heart.

"So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his." - Hebrews 4:9-10

I want to work, and play, and father, and husband, and pastor well, but I don't want to be busy anymore. But, I really don't want a busy heart anymore. I'm back to Psalm 131 (probably my favorite Psalm now) "But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me."  - Psalm 131:2 

I have 4 kids, and they all nursed (and they are all weened!). Have you heard of being hangry? I think it's a newly coined word, and it describes well the frantic hungry angry unweened baby. Crying, gasping, panting, head relentlessly looking, not for mother, but for milk. But Psalm 131.2 is such a different scene. The child is now weened, and not franticly looking for milk, but is happy because mom is there. She is just here! She is enough.

The unsatisfied chase for rest is over, when I have found, and have been found, by the One who is here--the One who is enough.