Survival to Enough

It's been awhile since I've been here...here thinking about what I want to, not what I have to. That's where I've been the past couple weeks, in mental survival mode. I took for granted the season where my mind could go wherever which way seemed most fitting for the day or the coffee shop or the conversation or the blog. That season was when my job was different. There's been no room for reading or studying extra things or meandering around my head to see what may want to surface and connect with my heart... or the other way around. I've been in mental survival mode where the only things that get processed are what HAVE to be to keep me sane (relatively), productive, on time, competent, etc. I am a lot like my dad. So much sometimes it's creepy and annoying or unbelievably beautiful depending on the day. My mom said to me this week "you're just like your dad. As laid back as he can be, when he gets stressed he's wound tighter than a drum." As much as I wanted to drive to Oklahoma and kick my dad in the shins for passing on that trait, or maybe I wanted to kick God in the shins (I've wanted to do that),there was at least something comforting in the realization that it must have some merit somewhere at some juncture if God made 2 people who do it that way.

I have hope that the mental survival mode will pass, but I am still mustering up enough trust to not try to hurry along God's processes. If I'm not careful I become a slave to time and productivity and efficiency. I think in strategy/efficiency mode in all aspects of life not just the part of my job that requires it (and somehow resent it all the while). I loose sight and touch and feeling of a REALLY big God who has this efficiency thing figured out. It doesn't look like it from the Earth-side sometimes because the strategy of Heaven doesn't even fit on the scale of efficiency and strategy on Earth. It's not just that it's too big or grand to fit, it literally has no way of fitting in. It is not only a totally different scale, it's totally different measurements too. It's apples and oranges, or maybe more like microwaves and mountains. Comparing isn't even feasible. Strategy and efficiency in God's terms would be something like loving your neighbor as yourself or figuring out this life with Jesus thing with your whole heart, mind and soul. It would include dying to yourself and thinking of the good of others not just before but instead of your own. It's counter intuitive and presumably counter productive when compared to the Earth version of strategy and efficiency.

As right and good and repetitive for some as all that sounds....there's still potentially a tension that lies in the fact that Earth had deadlines and expectations and reviews and paychecks and people that call you 3 x in 16 hours because you weren't returning their phone call fast enough for something that could totally wait till Monday (and it is waiting). But it doesn't change that at the end of the day or the end of the week when I finally stop to think and regroup, that the Holy Spirit can help relieve some of that tension because of Jesus who lived in it for a time. That still doesn't feel totally concrete, but maybe it shouldn't. Even if there's not enough energy today to study or read or process or change the world, I am confident that just turning my heart's posture towards God will be enough as he is Enough in the biggest sense of the word. The Enough that takes care enough to fit perfectly to each of us, not the enough that just gets meets minimum expectation. I'll need to rename him Enough for now if you don't mind....