Isn’t it sad that we have to now “make” time for God, as if time is a commodity that we have mined on our own and God is outside of it’s boundaries…
Nearly a month into working three part-time jobs, sadly, I feel like I’m back in the boat of “making time for God.” It’s almost like I’m paying bills. I know it needs to be done, but I can’t, for the life of me, just sit down and do it, because I would be “wasting time.”
Then again, when I let this concept roll over in my head for a while, I wonder where I got the idea that I am “supposed” to have these special, one-to-one, deep, heartfelt conversations with God in order to be right with him. My hunch is, I’ve got a screw loose. I remember C.S. Lewis once writing that, in our relationship with God, we are to be like a horse and it’s master. We don’t do certain things to receive certain other things, gifts or blessings. Rather, we live as we were created to live, for the admiration of our Master for simply being and living as He created us to be.
So, what am I getting at? I’m not really sure because my eyes can’t stay open long enough for me to read back over what I wrote so that it will make some semblance of sense…
Hopefully more coherency later…
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Dov Baer, the Maggid of Mezritch, wrote:
“There are three stages of self. The first stage is simply earning a living. Preoccupied with mouths to feed, needing sleep, and if they are lucky, finding some leisure to sit down and rest. (My addition: and take the kids to soccer practice, watch the Cowboys game, check their e-mail, return their phone calls, and mow the yard.) They do not have time to ponder whether or not they have selves or the designs of the Holy One of Being. For them it is enough to attend the house of prayer in the morning and the evening, give a little charity, observe the Sabbath.’…
“Then there are the ones who are driven to ask questions. These are the ones that know they have selves. Afflicted with the ancient questions of who they are and who God is, they sit with their feet in cold water so they can stay awake a few more hours and read just another page or two of the Talmud, driven by the hope that the answer will be on the next page, condemned by self reflection to be aware they themselves are the ones who are searching.
Some, the third kind, are no longer aware of their selves. They are very close to God. Then what is the difference between them and the first group of people who were preoccupied with earning their living? Not much. Maybe only that they have gone on the journey and returned to precisely from which they began.”