Plan vs Actual

"The span between life as we intend it and life as we receive it is vast. Our true purpose is worked out in that gap. It is fashioned in the crucible of interruptions." Mark Buchanan The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul By Restoring Sabbath

Life as I had originally intended it in my dreams and youth is certainly not what I have received. I like the word received here.  What we envision at times is so very limiting on what the Lord intends to do with and through us. When we open our hearts up to see where He wants to take us, when we receive the life He has for us, our perspective changes. The drive falls away and is replaced by seeing His plan.  I still very much struggle at times to see His logic and plan. But looking back I see I have been steered well. He has taken me on a very different path, but I can only be grateful for that.  Can we let go of those intended things without them becoming disappointments that drive a wedge between our Father and ourselves? That is my assignment to reflect on for now. 

At work we talk a lot about how we are doing with our actual results versus our plans.  We are always striving hard to hit plan or do better.  Yet in my personal life I see sometimes my plan is no where close to the actual which is happening.  What is the real "plan" I should be working toward?  See the flaw in the logic I have at times is I think I am driving the plan. When really I never saw the actual plan.  I need to be seeking, looking for His plan. When I orient myself toward that these other things will no longer appear to be interruptions, but purposeful.  

“One of the largest obstacles of true Sabbath-keeping is leisure…Leisure is what Sabbath becomes when we no longer know how to sanctify time. Leisure is Sabbath bereft of the sacred.” (p. 35)

Most of my thoughts and ruminations right now are finding their genesis in Mark Buchanan’s book “The Rest of God” (2006).  These posts are my working out of his teaching in my own life.

I no longer like to go on a vacation where I do a lot of sightseeing and activities and call it restful.  It’s not restful being on a schedule or running from site to site in a new place.  It’s just as tiring or more than going to work all week.  In the past I would go on this sort of vacation and come back to work and feel worse than when I had left.   I had seen a lot but I had run myself ragged in the short time I was gone, packing in every minute.  Vacation in its root means to vacate, or leave or evacuate something. When we go on vacation do we actually leave behind our busyness, or do we just take on a new form of busyness, vacation busyness? We need to learn how to find real rest.  A time that is set apart for restoration and renewing of our mind, so that we can continue on in our day to day work. Romans 12: 2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (NIV)

I must admit that more often than not my dream is to just not work anymore.  I mean wouldn’t that be the ultimate in rest?  You wouldn’t have to DO anything.  I have been deceived multiple times into thinking that if I just didn’t have to work my life would be easier, more restful, less frantic.  Why haven’t I won the Lottery or that HGTV Dream Home yet?  Oh wait, I don’t enter the lottery… But would my life really be more rested and less frantic if I didn’t work?  No I don’t think so.  In fact when I stay home and do nothing, I don’t feel any better either.  I just feel lazy and like I wasted the day.   I think we really need work.  It helps us feel productive and feel purposeful.  No the answer to my struggle against a hectic life and busyness is not stopping work.  We were created to work.  Adam was given the Garden of Eden to tend, and the animals to name and care for. Later work became at its core frustrating after the fall (Gen 3:17-19), but there is still so much satisfaction in a good day’s work.  I often find working in my garden so restful and restorative.  I see the fruit of my labor in the tidiness of the flower beds, the growth of the vegetables and blooms.  God is at his core a grower of this world, a gardener of our spirits.  We are replicating God’s work.  I love to build things for my house.  I love to create and knit something from nothing.  To see an idea or plan take shape and come to physical existence is so exiting and satisfying.  Again, this is one of God’s core characteristics.  He is the Creator.  And now we get the opportunity and joy of creating. So removing work from our lives is not what we need.  It is not the solution.

Rest is really setting apart time for the sacred.  Sabbath time is a time to renew our minds, to re-center and refocus on God’s core plan for us, for this world, to remind ourselves of truth. What we really need is to be made new in the attitude of our minds.  Ephesians 4: 22-24 “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”  I’ve never been good at “quiet times” with the Lord. I’ve never been naturally disciplined to take and make time sacred.  This is my next quest, this is how I will stay rested.  I suppose I need to just start trying.

Purpose

Do you know what yours is? It's amazing how much purpose drives us. We need a purpose in life. Some core value to live for. Now as a believer definitely we have the"macro" purposes to live by. For example Matthew 22:37-39 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There are others like "Be fruitful and multiply", but my participation in that command isn't quite for this moment in my life. So how do we use the gifts we have been given by the Lord? What has He created you to do here?

You see this last year was pretty big for me. First I hit the ten year anniversary at my work and subsequently received my first ever sabbatical. A great blessing, but also a time marker. You see that sabbatical had always seemed so far off, and in my mind I would have accomplished so many things by that time in my life. It was an important year of reflection. Also it was a year marked with a very intense project, long hours and exhaustion. And what was it for? You see, my purpose, what I was created for....it's not what I am doing in my day to day job. That began to gnaw at me. I knew shipping shoes, improving processes, and making sure you could buy NFL jerseys was NOT what I was passionate about. I am good at it, and for years that success and the idea that I had time lulled me into complacency. But that is not what I want my life defined by. So what was my purpose?

After my year of reflection I realized this purpose this calling has been incubating and growing in me for some time. I just needed to articulate it. Here it is...

I am called to encourage, give rest, restore and lift up those that have died to themselves and have committed to a life spent in service to their God and savior. With the goal of keeping them healthy so that they can continue to live out their purpose and calling.

This is what I am passionate about! Now that it's articulated I can't wait to see how God shepherds me in it and where we will go. I have visions but God is the real vision caster and Creator. My prayer is that I will see the next steps one at a time. For now though, I have that core value to go back to. That is who I am. That is how I define myself. I am no longer confined to being defined by my job or my success at it. This has brought me so much freedom. I hope you find and articulate your purpose and calling in life. I am praying you will. Here is a quote that really speaks to the place I am in. Honor your purpose.

"When salvation comes to your house, first you think differently, then you act differently. First you shift the imagination with which you perceive this world then you enact gestures with which you honor it." Mark Buchanan The Rest of God (2006)