We have reduced so much of life to what we see as practical, useful, and productive. Stay on task. Get something done. Carpe Diem. Don't waste it.
We have indeed also reduced God in our minds the same way by focusing on His work, His timing, His plans and purposes, His designs, His provisions, and His answers to our prayers -- what is useful and efficient and what we deem as fruitful.
But in that utilitarian view, we miss the wonders. It is often in the inefficiencies when nothing appears to be happening that we become most aware of the presence of God.
In God's sight, inefficiencies may not be so insignificant at all. All through Scripture, God calls His people to listen, to watch, and to wait. Paying attention is never a waste of time.
God speaks to us in the most unlikely places and unexpected situations. Our "inefficiencies"-- that pointless task, that waiting for a package that doesn't come, the bread that did not rise, the people who did not show up, an arduous task that deflated like a flat tire -- are sometimes the places of hearing Him more clearly.
The most frustrating inefficiencies in our day may be the most fruitful part of it. God's designs linger far beyond our lifetimes or our comprehension.
As a shy little girl, I hung out a lot with my grandmother who lived with us. God wove deep spiritual growth through those very ordinary moments. My grandmother was busy from dawn until past my bedtime, and I often wondered if she slept at all. But she always left an all-present margin for conversation in the quietness of just being together or working side by side. Her faith in God and His faithfulness to her just kind of bubbled out of her.
I consciously remember only fragments of what she said to me. But what lingers --and still impacts me-- was her "inefficient" use of time. In those little interruptions of mine, wandering into her room with my unceasing questions, she didn't view as disruptions but as scattered intermissions in what she was working on. And somehow she saw the profound significance in those inopportune moments when she had a myriad of things to do, could have produced that which appeared tangible, and she would have something to show for her day.
Which she did after all, because she gave me her time and attention. She did her work, but was not distracted from what really mattered. And that is what I still carry with me.
A whole new day is stretched out before each one of us, full of appointments, urgencies and big rocks in the middle of our paths. We want to glorify God, to be faithful, get things done, and fulfill His purposes.
But we miss the point if we restrict Him to our practical and tangible accomplishments, or limit ourselves to a check-it-off-the-list kind of day. We still need to be responsible and get our work done. But all the while, God calls us to "Abide with Me" through it. And that is never an inefficient use of time, work or being, but a joy that lingers and lasts forever.
He is before all things,
and in Him all things
hold together.
Colossians 1. 17
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