Each of your days begins with the reliable promise of 24-hours. On some days, those hours stretch out languidly, and on other days the hours rush past. One by one, they disappear, like when you blow on the seedhead of a dandelion. Now you see them, now you don’t.
Finding a rhythm during my sabbatical has been tricky, but my days go more smoothly when I begin by reading a daily devotion and spend some minutes in silence. Today, l successfully avoided both.
How? I slept in a bit, made a yummy donut run with my daughter, bought a cart-full of groceries (two teenage boys to feed), and spent the rest of the morning making (and sampling) monster cookies. During my sugary morning, I listened to a sermon from a preaching conference called the Festival of Homiletics, a podcast wondering how customized our lives should be, and another podcast offering great wisdom about summer screentime for families. In other words, I consumed cookies and information, two of my favorite things!
And right…no daily devotions.
The hours in a day have a habit of marching ahead. How often do you take a good look at your day before it slips away (like the dandelion seedhead) and ask yourself what is at its center? Does the center of your day have to do with accomplishing tasks? Looking good? Sounding capable? Or just getting through it? What is it that holds your day together; the string that connects the hours as they unfold? And what does the way you begin your day have to do with the rest of your day?
Before the hours of a new day arrive, I invite you to wonder how you might begin the first hours, and what difference that might make. How can the center, that is, what holds your day together, position you firmly in the love of God in Jesus Christ?
The spiritual practice of devotions (or a walk or a prayer or a guided meditation) might remind you the days filled with hours do not go on forever. You have only so many days, only so many hours, and no matter how you spend them, each one is pure gift from the God who is love.
On the days I successfully avoid reading devotions, I tend to forget the gift of each hour and who gave them to me. The hours march on and therefore so do I until suddenly the seeds are all caught up in the wind and I turn off the last light. Perhaps tomorrow I will be less successful! And maybe even a tiny bit wiser.
Lisa Lewton 