Rhythm. All of life is rhythm. Breathe in. Breathe out. Sleep. Wake. Work. Play. Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall.
Rhythm is what makes music worth dancing to.
As disciples of Jesus we tune our lives to the rhythm of God in receiving God’s love and then giving God’s love to others–receive, give, receive, give.
When Jackie and I were first married, we moved from the seminary community in Wilmore, KY to the north side of Lexington. We moved into the neighborhood of our church, which was located in the low-income section of town. There was a trailer park practically in the backyard of the church. We had neighbors that had been Katrina refugees.
Some girls from the church lived on the street and hosted a dinner at their house every Friday night. Everyone on our street was invited. Some amazing Kingdom stuff was going on. At one point, there were about half a dozen families on our street getting sucked into the life of the church through these dinners. But it didn’t last, and definitely not with a happy ending.
While I look back on that experience with some awe of what God did there, I don’t remember it as a fun time, unfortunately. The fact is there was a lot of ugliness, and mostly between church people. We had a lot of Marthas, people consumed by doing stuff for Jesus and the poor, and not enough Marys, people listening and learning from Jesus and waiting on the Holy Spirit to lead them.
As disciples of Jesus we tune our lives to the rhythm of God in receiving God’s love and then giving God’s love to others–receive, give, receive, give.
In her book The Mystic Way of Evangelism, seminary professor Elaine Heath describes a community of nuns who serve some of the poorest of the poor in Austin, TX. She writes,
The basic ministry, Sister Salvinette told us, is prayer. The sisters gather togetehr four times a day to pray for an hour. They use mostly silent prayer, contemplating the love of God in front of the blessed Sacrament [the communion bread and wine]. This is how they receive the love they need, to give to the people. “We could never do what we do if we did not pray this way,” Sister Salvinette told us. “It would be too hard.”
Look at that. The basic ministry is prayer. Not prayer, as in telling God what you want. But prayer, as in listening to God. Listening to what He wants. Sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening. Because naivete about serving Jesus in the world will crush the life out of you.
Question: What would sitting still and listening to Jesus look like for you today?
Fiftyeight 