Thwarted!

It was finally time. The long awaited, desperately needed Sabbatical was now to be a reality. I felt like a runner in position, bent over the starting line ready to break lose as soon as the gun fired. Already I had heard “On your mark, get set…” . Waiting with baited breath to hear “GO”, I didn’t, I heard something else. Fear shouted loudly instead. Suddenly guilt coursed through my veins when just moments earlier it was desperate anticipation and excitement. The ‘GO” dwindled into a muffled whisper and all I could hear were the deafening shouts of fear, guilt and shame. My hope and joy for Rest, Renewal and Retooling fell dead in their tracks…thwarted!

Thus began my encounter with that which had me in such desperate need of Sabbatical in the first place. Fear has that subtle way of smearing its sticking film over everything. The latest layer of it settled on my heart when I realized that by choosing rest, I was choosing trust. My sabbatical would mean a relinquishing of my most important post; that post as a loving mother to my son and daughter in law who were weeks away from the birth of their son who they knew would die shortly after holding him in their longing arms. They needed me! Choosing rest would mean trusting God to care for them better than I could. Could I trust like that? Would I? The fear of being a ‘bad mom’ paralyzed me and quickly gave way to guilt. Guilt sucked the breath right out of me when I saw that I had a choice to make. Would I choose to put the oxygen mask on myself before trying to be the oxygen of all oxygen I thought my grieving kids needed? What if they got mad at me for leaving for a few weeks? What if they really needed me and I wasn’t there? What if…?? Fear to guilt to shame! Shame on me for being needy…and the beat goes on.These wicked triplets, fear, guilt and shame, disguised themselves to be the culprits that were proud to thwart, to hijack the divine plan that was provided and in place for my health and well being, for I really was in a desperate state. But, as is usually the case with chronic exhaustion, my guard was down, sound judgment was lacking. I was ready to blame anything or anybody for what was really my own choosing. I was too tired and worn to see that the very best way to help my children was to choose trust. The providential timing for Sabbatical was the first of many invitations that I courageously chose to accept. By choosing rest I stood with holy resolve in the deceitful faces of fear, guilt and shame and they had no power over me. My kids blessed me and sent me to the One who had open arms outstretched for me, trusting that He would return me to them with my open arms outstretched and ready to hold their broken hearts. And I did.Proverbs 3:21-24  Guard sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight…then you will go on your way in safety and your foot will not stumble; when you lie down you will not be afraid.

Our Sabbatical Journey:

During the next 30 days or so, both Gwen and I want to process our Sabbatical journey with you here in this blog. It is really a way of organizing our thoughts around what has happened in us and to us in the past season of this season of being off. Bear with us as we both try to find words to express a shifting in the tectonic plates of our souls. It really does feel as if some major shifting has happened. We've regained a new perspective. We both feel renewed. We have rested, studied, read books and received wise counsel. All of this has helped us re-kindle the flame within---yes, re-kindle. That's the word. Re-kindled with God; with our own souls and with each other. It's been a rich and rewarding time despite walking through the shadow of death to release our grandson into the arms of heaven and taking another son down the aisle to be married. We've had highs and lows and most of all, we've had the time to process our journey by both looking back and looking within. We've looked up; press forward and renewed our love of life, God and each other.A sabbatical literally means “a time of ceasing.” It is like a vacation in that you literally are “vacating” your work but it is extended. A sabbatical is a season to do three things: rest, renew and re-tool. We did all three of these necessary movements and the benefits feel rich and rewarding. We said tonight over dinner that we would not change a thing in our sabbatical. We'll tell you more over the next month.I read, just this week, that only 42% of Americans take all of their allotted time off from work. For us, we were in that people group who seemed to never take the time we were given. This false arrogance all caught up with us. It always does. I felt like I was needed. I felt like I couldn't do what I was asking, coaching and telling other leaders to do. It massaged an inner sickness within me that caused demons, I long thought were asleep to wake up inside me. These demons were inner-addictions I thought I had long faced and walked away from. It was not the case.This costs us dearly. We had grown thin in our ability to care. We greatly underestimated the wear and tear to our own souls as we attempted to care for leaders in both the ministry and marketplace. It was as if my soul had a slow leak in it. Drip by drip, I felt my life flowing from me. By the fall of this past year, we knew we were in trouble. We needed to do what we needed to do. It was that simple. Since, we're not ready to retire, we both intuitively knew that if we were to finish the journey ahead...a necessary respite simply had to happen. And I would have to muster up the courage to take and extended time off. I would take a sabbatical. We'll both write more about the struggle and resolve to finally dig in and say we were going to do a sabbatical. Our choice to do so is one of the best decisions we have made in our journey thus far.The roots of a sabbatical are found in the Bible (Genesis 2:2-3; Lev. 25, Deut 5:12-15). Since the beginning of time, the Creator of this world knew that everyone and everything ought to cease from time to time because something happens in a season of ceasing that cannot and will not happen at any other time. Unless we learn to cease, we are setting ourselves up for dead-ends; burn out and flame outs. Even farmers allow a field to lie fallow for a season. They do this so that the field might be nurtured back to life by being dormant. But this kind of thinking is almost extinct in the modern world. With this extinction we are now seeing the price we are all paying by always being on; always being available and always being wired 24/7. There is a high price to pay and many of us our mindlessly living our lives without taking into account the bankrupt nature of our souls. We live our lives on empty and have the audacity to call this life--the abundant life. The busy life is not the abundant life. Busy can be for a season, but not for more than a season.I see this error in living and thinking every day of my working life. And let me just tell you this one insight: When you burn out, it takes a long, long time to come back to life. You don’t burn out in one day. It’s a slow, steady leak in your soul that drains you. You run your life on empty and give left-overs to everyone and everything—including your self. I believe the thinness in so many leader's lives today is leading to a thinness and shallowness in our churches, in our books and in our songs. It's become dreadful to see how we are living and sharing our shallow lives on social media and more.Now, after having coached scores and scores of leaders in the marketplace and ministry to take a sabbatical, I finally took my own. It took me 40 years to muster the courage; face myself in the mirror and confess: “Steve, you are bone tired and you’re not going to make it to the end of your vocational journey unless you stop, cease and renew yourself.” Each word in that sentence is important and one you might think to underline and sit with.Is this the case for you?I took a entire 2 years to plan our sabbatical. I read everything there was in print and sadly found most of it shallow, hallow and worthless. A few lone voices in the wilderness became like prophets to me and Gwen calling us “This way—take this path and you’ll recover your life.” We listened to their voice. Heeded their advice and planned a four month season—equal to ¼ of a calendar year to be “off.”Questions to Consider:What would being “off” really look like? Where would you go? Who would you want to go with? What would you do? What would you do?

Our Sabbatical Journey: Insights on the Road Back to Life

Friends, I"m excited to share that both Gwen and I will be blogging soon about our Sabbatical Journey. As many of you know, we've unplugged, gone under the radar and not worked at Potter's Inn for five months. Fifteen years of pioneering Potter's Inn; giving and giving; caring for the souls of so very many leaders across the world left us tired, worn out and weary. Let me just spill the beans... our sabbatical has exceeded our hopes and expectations in every way. Despite witnessing our grandson dying and consumed with grief in our sabbatical time; despite the marriage of our third son, Cameron--and the addition of Lindsey whom we love already; despite knowing the fragility of raising our support and the thinness of finances at Potter's Inn--we felt called and compelled to take the time we've written about; taught about; coached so many folks across the world to do what we had NEVER done for ourselves----we took a Sabbatical.Both Gwen and I will be sharing our insights, lessons, take-a-ways and on-going questions and nagging fears about re-entry. I'm excited because Gwen has finally said "Yes" to documenting her own journey and pulling back the curtain--so to speak so you can witness her own journey and in her own words. I'll be sharing my road back to health in losing 60 pounds and watching my blood pressure drop significantly. I'll be sharing what I did and how I did it. It's been the biggest paradigm shift I've ever made thus far in my life. With the help of my medical doctor, now turned coach, friend and colleague in our teaching at Potter's Inn, we will both be blogging about the maze of un-doing habits, thinking and addictions and having our minds transformed about how we are now looking at food. I'm afraid for decades, I lived to eat---and now I am eating to live!Living in a world where we live 24/7 being "on", wired to the max and always available, we will both share why we stopped doing "social media" and insights we gained from our technology fast. The blog will be rich with insights we WANT to share and it is our hope that our own journey might benefit you in some, life giving way.Spiritually, renewal has come. A stream has come to the desert and we are rejoicing. We'll be sharing the significant books we've read that have nursed us to life and sustained us with courage for the next leg of our journey.In late May, Gwen and I will be doing our own "Re-entry Retreat" with a wise sage who will guide us to re-enter our life and work with all we've learned in these good yet hard months.You'll need to subscribe to the blog as it will be a DAILY update from Monday-Friday and will be replacing the Food for the Soul Daily Devotion for the month of June and perhaps a bit beyond. We'll see how it goes; how you're enjoying it and what your feedback is for us. So please do leave us comments.If you are subscribed and are already receiving FOOD For The Soul--the daily devotional I send out of my writings, no need to worry. You'll receive a link each Monday-Friday which will direct you to the blog.Take a moment and ask some friends to join you on our Sabbatical Journey and consider our journey as a place to have your discussions about your longings, desires and yearnings in your heart for your own life.This new way of sharing through this blog will begin mid-May. Be on the look for it and share it on your own streams of Social Media! We'd be so grateful.Every blessing,Steve and Gwen

The Place in My Heart

 There is a place in my heart that I’ve been renovating. It’s been a crowded, noisy and daunting space that has needed much attention. I’ve tried conferences, books, seminars and such where I have learned tips and techniques that promised to help me with my life transformation. All have failed me, save one.I remember thinking that peace was a place somewhere on an island with a beautiful sandy beach with tropical trees and drinking coconut juice from cracked open husks. But I realized as you have also, that as we pack our bags to visit such places that our dirty laundry and inner chaos goes with us. No matter how serene the setting, the interior life can wreak havoc.People use to call their church buildings “sanctuaries.” God knows we need a sacred space to go to from time to time in this busy world we are living in today. But even that word is going the way of the dinosaur. We have stages today, not pulpits; auditoriums, not sanctuaries. We’re terrible confused—we modern people who have come so far, but feel so terribly lost. We are still in search of sacred space—a place where the heart can call home.The old monastics built places in the woods to retreat from the world’s noise. These little cabins were called “hermitages” and a Russian word—“Poustinia.” They were small places—simple spaces with no distractions, no competing sources of entertainment. They were rustic. Simple. Inviting. Safe.So, this year, our ministry has set out to build a Poustinia at our retreat in Colorado. It’s a small 12x16 log sided cabin with a green metal roof where you can hear the rain as you gaze out on Pike’s Peak, a snow capped mountain today over 14,000 feet in the air. There’s a small covered porch where one rocking chair will be placed. This little cabin in the woods is the modern day answer to the modern day plague that has infected the beautiful souls of we—the modern, wired and always “on” people. To be clear, I am one of you. I am not a monk nor am I thinking of becoming one.But one thing I do know, the building of the Poustinia for me, is an outward symbol of an inner reality that is going on inside of me. As the Poustinia is taking shape, I feel the same thing happening in me. My soul is taking shape. It would seem like I would and perhaps should have gotten my soul in shape by now. But in all honesty, it takes a long time for a saint to be made.My Poustinia is really a space within me. It is a space I need to build to connect with God; to relax in my own skin and to be my true self. It is a place of solitude where all of the insanity and chaos of this world, all of the “giddy-up” and let’s hurry faster is left outside. It is a place of shalom—that place of well-being where at last I can be with God and God with me. By going to the little cabin in the woods, I am really on a journey to go to the Poustinia within me—that place that Jesus described so aptly as a closet where you can at last be alone. Be quiet. Be still and know God at last.Competing demands; rivaling priorities and inner chaos flood our lives every single day. We seek balance but know in the end that balance is truly bunk. The journey to go to the Poustinia is a journey that every spiritual master I have ever read about has taken—and has taken alone.Our Poustinia, will have one chair, one table, one bed, one tiny wood burning stove and windows to look out and space to look inside. It is sacred space and in my heart that sacred space is being born.In her remarkable book, “Poustinia: Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer” which has mentored me in this understanding, Catherine Doherty says, “...you have, as it were, a poustinia within you. It is as if within you there were a little cabin in which you and Christ are very close; it is with this attitude that you go about your business. God forbid that you should all become recluses or hermits! That is not what is meant by being a Poustinik in the marketplace. It means that within yourselves you have made a room, a cabin, a secluded space. You have built it by prayer.You should be more aware of God than anyone else, because you are carrying within you this utterly quiet and silent chamber. Because you are more aware of God, because you have been called to listen to him in your inner silence, you can bring him to the street, the party, the meeting, in a very special and powerful way. The power is his, but you have contributed your fiat. He has asked you and chosen you to be the carrier of that silent poustinia within yourself.”So, we are all building a place within our hearts, aren't we?  That is precisely what the work of spiritual formation is all about. More room for Jesus.  That he might increase and I decrease. Let the renovation continue! Copyright@ 2014 Stephen W. Smith. All Rights Reserved.  You may "share" this post but not copy for distribution. Thank you.  Important Note:  All of  our retreats are fully booked for the remainder of the year. We will SOON be announcing news of 2015 retreats and our brand New Soul Care Institute, a two-three year training program.

Chasing the Bitch-goddess of Success

Chasing the Bitch-goddess of Success

 by Stephen W. Smith

Copyright 2013: Stephen W. Smith. This material may NOT be re-printed, used or copied in any form.

We are in trouble.  We are living in a corrosive and corrupted culture that is shaping the souls of men and women more that the Divine Potter is forming our very own souls.  We are chasing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. 

            We don’t believe the wise old Jewish preacher who once said:

“One handful of peaceful reposeIs better than two fistfuls of worried work—More spitting into the wind.”[1]

We scorn one handful of anything—but less peace, tranquility and a serene life. We strive for two handfuls of everything. More money. More pleasure. More income. More square footage. More. More. More! We find ourselves living in the illusion which says, “More can be yours if you work your butt off for it.”  We live in a time and space which reduces the value of a human being to what you have; not who you are!

            The voice of our culture says, “Hurry up and win! “  “You can have it all! But only to those who work the hardest!”  “The one with the most toys win.”  It’s very interesting to note that in the history of Christianity, men and women who achieved “saint” status were never measured by their accumulations. The amassing of fortunes has never inspired any saint I know of to do more. Their movtivation came from a deeper place—a place inside of them that was not broken; corrupted or wrecked. They were not looking for the outer markers of success as so many are today. Instead, their inner radar honed in on something true; something right and something eternal.

            Today, we are shaped by the Fortune 500 list which you will never be on. We are shown fabulous automobiles that we cannot afford. We are mesmerized by beautiful people in ads and commercials which we will never become.  We live in a perpetual place of suspension—always longing for but never, ever arriving.

            Spiritual pursuits have been replaced by capitalists achievements. We strive. But come up empty. Leaders chase the wind and then spit into it when failure comes. We have swallowed the pill that influences our sense of security, conscious and character. We are confused and we are burned-out from chasing the bitch-goddess of success.  That one, seemingly true god which is a hybrid, culturally defined bench marker of what makes a man or women.

            The bitch-goddess of success inspires us to believe that self-esteem is found in having more and doing more. Money and success becomes the true currency to get you somewhere.  Effort and achievement are heralded as the way to being successful. We read books to help us understand how we can manage our time more to achieve more. 

            In the end, but at the beginning of the 21^st century we are tired, worn out and exhausted---calling it all the abundant life.  We are believing the lie that the bitch-goddess haunts us with.  “If you do more, then you will be more and then and only then will you have more.”

---

[1] Ecclesiastes 4:6, The Message

Tis' the Season of Despair and a Time for Waiting

Never before in my life, have I personally witnessed so much despair in the lives of so many people.  The economy has been depressed and depressing for five long years now.  It seems so many wonderful people are struggling on a daily basis to keep their head above water.  Most are struggling. Many are stumbling.  Collectively, we are surviving but few could honestly say they are thriving. We are still in a war. Politics offers few answers and little hope. And then there's the church which pretends  as if nothing is really wrong and holds to sameness, gripping its collective fear of change and moving ever so close to the cliff of no return.Five years ago this week I led a retreat for white collar workers in Denver. I asked the question, “How many of you are living with more fear in your life than at any other time?”  Every hand was raised.  Today, as I travel, speak and work one on one with leaders both in the market place and the ministry, fear is the predominate descriptor of emotion that most people I work with are expressing. Truly, we are living in a most sobering time--a season calling for deep searching and few answers. It doesn't matter if we are white collar or blue. Democrat or Republican-- American or African---we are quivering in our boots in an unparalleled season of floundering without breakthrough and endurance rather than hope.Allow me to be honest and transparent.  All of this takes a tremendous toil on a small ministry where we seek to raise our support year after year to be a resource to leaders both in the business world and ministry sphere who themselves are struggling. I have my own questions. Can we survive? Will we make it? Is there something--anything I can possibly do that would help?We are in “it” together. We are waiting for a better time. We are hoping to turn the corner to a time when so much struggling, work and effort to stay alive, sustain our lives and experience a fulfillment of a dream, a hope and a vision.Friends, this is precisely what “ADVENT” is all about. Advent is a season of expectant waiting for something to happen that will turn the table and improve our most desperate situation. Most followers of Jesus wrongly assume that being saved is a once in a life-time event. But life teaches us that we need to be saved from MORE than just our sins. We need to be saved from despair. We need to be saved from coming unglued. We need to be saved from merely surviving to experiencing a robust sanity in life.The coming four weeks of Advent are weeks to move away from the commercialization and sick emphasis on materialism as the answer to our dilemma. Advent is the intentional waiting on God to show up and do something about our sick condition. Many followers of Jesus are unaware of the practice of Advent. We’re throw the baby of this important season out with the water to be relevant and “seeker friendly.”  In doing so, we have found ourselves more caught up than ever before in Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Depressing December year-ends. Returning to Advent is the beginning of a new way to look at life. Take each week and simply light a candle each Sunday marking the long, awaited wait for the Day that God will finally appear. Each week, watch your mantel, coffee table or dining table grow brighter and brighter with light. Isn’t that what we want—more light; more hope; more progress. The candles of Advent literally show us the way forward through the long, dismal season of darkness.  Here’s a link to one of the best resources I am aware of that helps us embrace not scorn this important season: http://www.adventconspiracy.org/If you find yourself nodding your head in agreement to what I  have written here, you are not alone.  Read my opening sentence again. Many of us are struggling. Advent is an important part of the answer.  Let me encourage you to consider the practice of having a  small advent wreath in your home or use an Advent calendar—perhaps even before you decorate a Christmas Tree. I believe movement in a spiritual direction will help.  The Bible simply says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”This season, make daily efforts to mark this season different from other ones. Be with friends. Choose to attend services where Advent is practiced  and learn something. Perhaps, it’s not about finding a new church but finding a new way to worship God this season.  Choose to live Advent and turn the despair from disillusionment to hope.  Hope in God to turn our ways to His ways.Here’s my prayer everyday in this season of Advent waiting:“Lord, Help me to receive what you give, release what you take, lack what you withhold, do what you require and be who you desire.”

Read it! Share it! Forward it! Live it!

Hurry-sickness is overtaking us. We've succumbed to the feverish pitch of trying to balance life even when it is out of control.  In my new book, The Jesus Life, I have a section on re-thinking all of this and suggest an alternative that is not new with me.It was anchored in Judaism; modeled by Jesus, practiced by the early church, yet forsaken in modern times. It is the concept of living your life in a sustainable rhythm.Now, I have some very good news. The chapter on rhythm is now downloadable into a little pdf booklet. We want as many people as possible to have this chapter to read, share, forward and most of all live.It's simple.To get the free chapter all you have to do is to go to:  www.myjesuslife.com  Click on the Free Download of The Rhythm of Jesus and enter your name and number and it's yours. Free!It's our attempt to spread some hope in this bad news world.  The idea is simple.  We're majored so much on the truth of Jesus that we have neglected the ways of Jesus.  The truth of Jesus together with the way of Jesus will yield the life of Jesus and that's what we want.Rhythm is a vital and critical part of our answer. Get the chapter. Forward this blog to 5 of your friends---heck to your whole small group and Sunday School class!Read it. Discuss it. Live it!

A Key to Experiencing the Abundant Life is Rhythm

Living in rhythm—and the commitment to live life in a sustainable rhythm will help you avoid burnout, experience despair, and running your life on empty.In choosing to live in rhythm you are accepting a different cadence in life than the one which says: Get! Achieve! Acquire! Do!  That kind of rhythm over the long haul leads to the front doors of burnout and failure.  By developing a more life-giving rhythm, you will need to explore a few foundational realities: 

1. Every living thing has a rhythm to it. The birds migrate. The sea ebbs and flows in tidal rhythm. A woman’s body has a biological rhythm and the farmer knows the rhythm of the seasons to plant the crops.
2. Rhythm is found in the Bible in the opening chapters of Genesis when we read that God created the world in six days and on the seventh—he ceased from all his work. The kingpin of a system of living in rhythm begins with the Sabbath rhythm. Work six days and one day is totally off—completely ceasing from all work related activities.
3. The Judeo-Christian faith was built upon a system of rhythm, festivals and experiences that allowed people to look FORWARD in anticipation because they knew Sabbath, or some festival or celebration was just around the corner. It also allowed them to reflect BACKWARD in appreciation of how good their time off was; how nurturing; how life-giving; how fun.
4. The early church embraced this rhythm as is evidenced in the Apostles praying in rhythm at certain times and in observing special seasons and times that morphed into living in a liturgical calendar. For example, this Sunday is regarded as Pentecost Sunday. It’s the day Christians world-wide remember the coming of the Spirit and how the Spirit emboldens our lives and we now live with the Spirit of God living in us.

We've violated rhythm today. We're always on. We're always available. We're always working. Just yesterday two major news magazines featured articles on how Americans do not take their vacations because they'd rather work. Here's a link to one: Business Journal ArticleI discuss this more in The Jesus Life (Chapter 4).  The reality of rhythm is this regardless of your experience in living in rhythm or having never heard of what I am discussing here. Rhythm was modeled by God, lived out in the Old Testament era, anchored by Jesus through his own life style as recorded by Luke and embraced by the New Testament church. By the time of the industrial and technological revolution, we are now always “on,” always, “available,” and always, “wired.” We never quit.It was life giving for me to take our dog Laz to the Vet recently due an ear infection. We arrived at 12:30 thinking we would be seen by the next available doctor. However the sign on the door simply said, “Our office is closed from 12:00pm-2:00pm each day” Please come back during regular office hours. I could have gotten mad and irritated thinking, “I’ll go somewhere else that really wants my money and will stay open in this 24/7 world we live in.” But I smiled. I imagined how nice it would be to be on staff of this large vet clinic who closed each day for lunch, allowing employees run errands and more.We have much wrong in our way of looking at reality. Rhythm is the key to living a sustainable, enjoyable life which we might learn to experience as the abundant life; not the exhausted life. ---------------------------Let me encourage to get and read The Jesus Life as one of your TOP summer reads. It's filled with practical suggestions and resources to help you foster and develop a sense of abundance in your life right now. We're offering a special right now. We'll pay the shipping plus send a free book, Embracing Soul Care--which is a daily devotional reading on how to care for your soul. ---------------Download for FREE the chapter on Living in Rhythm from the Jesus Life!  Go to: www.myjesuslife.com

Building the Scaffolding for the Abundant Life

Lesson #2.Have you ever noticed on new construction that the first thing builders build is the necessary scaffolding. The scaffolding is necessary. It's the beams, planks and poles that are erected both around and inside the new construction. There, the workers ascend the planks and build the building.Rhythm is the necessary scaffolding we need to build a sense of abundance into our lives. Without a sense of rhythm--every day is the same. The days turn into weeks and the weeks morph into years. But when we build the scaffolding of rhythm into our lives, we have the necessary structure to build our lives--to "work out our own salvation" as Paul says and to live not in drudgery but with meaning, satisfaction and a sense of abundance.In our time we called the Great Experiment, we purposed to live a life of rhythm. We had been doing too much. We had violated our own souls but accepting too many invitations and to try to say 'yes' to many times instead of saying 'no.' In our new rhythm, we worked hard but then took the time to come back to life. We gave our hearts away but then took the necessary time to de-tox; to rest, to reflect; to enjoy; to have fun and then we worked again.The scaffolding we began to build was to embrace a rhythm of engage--then disengage. Do our work. Pour our heart out. But then come back for a time of renewal, refreshment, rest and reflection. Without these four "R's: renewal, refreshment, rest and reflection we would only be on the treadmill of doing more; burning the candle at both ends and entering a sense of hamster wheel living.By imposing a scaffolding of rhythm, we are having the time to evaluate the trajectory of our lives; make small adjustments and live with hope and a renewed sense of calling which is deep and life-giving. It feels like blessing, not drudgery. It feels like life, not death. It feels like glimmers of abundance not endurance.In my book, The Jesus Life, I am hearing from people all over the world who are fascinated with what I unpack there in two chapters about rhymthm. Here, though, I want to go further. Say a bit more and share more personal insights and reflections.Using the scaffolding metaphor, envision how you want each day to look, each week, each month, each quarter and each year. What do you want to do each week that is life giving. What can you implement that is life giving every single month; every quarter.What kind of scaffolding do you envision for a sustainable rhythm?How many hours a week are you working currently and how much time would you like to disengage each week?What would disengagement look like?What does rhythm look like from where you are RIGHT NOW?

Taking the Time To Shed the Socks and Shoes of Worry and Scurry

We're back now from our "experiment" to spend some time on the east coast. While there, we based out of Holden Beach and traveled with our ministry speaking to churches, organizations and leading retreats. We had some much needed time off and it was in the time off that insights, epiphanies and dare I say, revelations came to us.  I want to share with you some of these insights because I feel they will be valuable for you as you read The Jesus Life and focus on establishing a healthy rhythm for your own life.Lesson #1:Coming down takes time.Just as it takes time for us to get wound up; to speed up to 5th gear living; to run our lives on empty--it also takes time to wind down--to "come down" where we ought to be, as the Quakers say in their beautiful song, "Tis, a Gift to Be Simple." No one shifts into 5th gear in an instant. You rev the engine up and just the opposite is true. To slow down, it takes time. There's no substitute for it. It takes time to come down where we ought to be.  Only time ministers to the soul in a way that nothing else can ever do. To scoot pass this invaluable lesson is to by-pass the secret of entering the rest we need.We rush and cram in our vacations and think we are taking "time off" but sometimes--perhaps even often, taking the time off makes us feel guilty, shameful and it's actually hard for many of us to take time off.  Let's face it--do you even know how to take a vacation that your body longs for and your soul  is thirsty for right now? Would you cram into too much fun; too much adventure and return even more exhausted?  Many of us do this.  I'm convinced that many parents today are setting their children up for disaster because the parents themselves can't really learn to live in a rhythm of grace. We do. We do too much. We do too much in our one week away.During our experiment, Gwen and I sat at the ocean for two weeks and and during the first week, our heads were still spinning at the speed of life we were moving in--which was too fast. Sitting on the beach; watching the waves and being quiet  helped us de-tox from the speed of our lives. But what's important is this: it took us 2 weeks to have a decent thought about this. It took time to un-clutter our heads and allow our hearts to resurface. For the first week, we were so deeply bone tired that we couldn't think clear. The second week, we felt ourselves coming back to life. It took a full, whole and other week for us to regain the vital connection we had lost in our hearts and with each other.It is enough to make you re-think a one week vacation...or even taking one or two days off. What good will they really do if you don't invest enough time to enter the true rest you really need.It takes time to shed the socks and shoes of worry and scurry. It takes time.  And if you don't take the time, you'll still be wearing the smelly socks of preoccupation, day dreaming, feeling quilty, living in the shame of taking time off altogether!As you plan your vacation here are some things to keep in mind and some questions to ponder: 1. How much time would you like to take off from your work and every day routine?  How much do you need? How much can you take?  What do you feel when these questions stare at you right now?2. Is it possible to have a buffer day before you go and leave and another buffer day when you return so that you're being nice to yourself and giving yourself some transition time--time to unpack. Time to take it easy rather than rush, rush, rush and hurry, hurry, hurry so you can finally relax.3. What lessons might Americans learn from the European brothers and sisters who take an entire month off?  Is that even possible?4. What would it look like for you to be able to shed the socks and shoes of hurry and scurry?