These two words have been heavy on me lately. Which am I doing more of? Some times we have seasons where we are more student than teacher, and so we are absorbing more. Other times, we are just spewing out beautiful things we’ve developed or made, creating and crafting and building seasons where we then we get to share our thing with the world.
I desire to be a writer for example, and yet I don’t put in the work to become one – one who is consistent and honing my craft to become better, more cohesive, more moving and impactful. Discipline in the process it requires to create has been lacking for me. I have instead been absorbing too often.
In the creation of prose that is worthy to be shared with the world, one must absorb. Ideas, inspirations, and reflections flow out of absorbing the world in which we live. We are moved spiritually and emotionally by life and all the outflowing of it, and that inspires us. So, absorbing is necessary while working through the process of creating.
My absorption however hasn’t been intentional or balanced. I haven’t been deliberate enough in content that I am choosing. The deafening distraction that is my phone keeps me off task, and I have wholly allowed it. And I can reason this out to know that I have been doing it, but it is a dredging cycle that I haven’t stopped. Discipline is what is needed. Put it down and pick up the book. Put it down and pick up the pen. Limit useless absorbing. Stop filling your mind with endless and unfruitful stuff! But, even more than the discipline of limiting distraction, we also need complete silence at times. Stillness. Inflection and reflection. Meditation on scripture. Prayer. These neglected gifts require less doing and more sitting.
One of the psalmist echoes my heart’s desire when he says, “my tongue is like the pen of a ready writer.” He says in the forty-fifth psalm of the bible that his “heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king.” Yes, I so get that! Or at least I desire that desperately! I have verses within, deep within…but the fog of distraction is cluttering up my mind that can deliver them to paper or to the screen.
While his poetry may have been an actual poem or a song to honor his king; so too, I want to compose and create pleasing writing. Not the lyrics of a song per se, but instead purpose-filled words – words that inspire or words that entertain. Words that also honor my king – King Jesus.
Sitting in the stillness has to come first for me, before I can find and articulate the overflow of my heart, that the psalmist is describing. How does this look for you? Do you have to sit and sketch things out, diagram, scribble out notes, take a ride alone in the country? What must come first for you to declutter your mind, so that then you do your best creating?
My distractions mostly aren’t bad; but they are too numerous. Maybe you can relate. Too many books started, but not yet read through, too many podcasts, too many video reels about too many topics. Too much at once is cluttering my mind space. And just as I unable to work with physical clutter around me without losing vast productivity, clutter in my mind also blocks the flow from my heart to give the verses, to make the post, or the story, or the blog, or the devotion. Maybe for you it’s a project, more time in the kitchen with your kiddos passing down your love for cooking, starting a Bible study with a friend, or starting a side business that you’ve dreamt of for years. Maybe instead of creating words, you want to paint beautiful portraits or stills or craft in some way or learn to play piano. But the distractions keep winning!
I have been clamoring around for some time, with a heart desire that I am suppressing. Even journaling answered prayers and beautiful things that are happening in my children’s lives has been a challenge because of distraction. And I want to record them before the details slip away!
Today, I want to stop the cycle. I am choosing to be still more often; one of the most difficult disciplines for me in life. If you think Mary and Martha, I definitely have a deeper affinity with Martha; although I know how to be more like her sister, Mary. Martha, much like I can be, was a busy task-seeker who was running around doing all the things to the neglect of the relational things that matter most. To the dismissal of enough sweet sitting and time with her Savior, Martha was missing that heart connection also. She was too distracted. The same that I am missing, when I busy myself to a fault, filling up every quiet second of my day with background chatter and tasks.
I whole-heartedly know from experience, when I practice more intentional quiet time, then I am inspired to write. I know that. And the quiet reflection in prayer and reading scripture is not the means just to get to the end of becoming some amazing published author. Not in any way! The primary reason to spend this time is to know our Creator more intimately, more connectedly. We as Christ followers read his word, pray, praise and speak to Him always for the intent of knowing him, and being more closely conformed to his image. When are minds are transformed and renewed by the Word of God, we become more like him. And that’s what this life is all about. Becoming more like him and sharing that with the world, so others also may know him is what the Christian walk is all about.
However, when I am still and my mind is unencumbered by mass loads of information, my heart functions better the way I know my Lord desires. This is his gift and the outflow of being transformed that we get to enjoy in this earthly life. The most influential bible teacher I have ever been mentored under, Mrs. Jerri Tuck used to say “we can’t be so heavenly minded, that we’re no earthly good.” And it hit me then, like yes, I get that! Her joy of the Lord just radiated out of her! Literally, she had a glow that you could and can see in her face. Her balance of absorbing the Lord and being a creator of goodness in her earthly life (work, family and church) was a model that I wanted to follow. She made it look effortless, but it wasn’t. She put hours into the sitting and the study and the prayer. And the result that I could witness in her life, was the intentional time she put in heavenly work, flowed over into every aspect of her earthly responsibilities.
The Lord God created us to build and plant and harvest and create beauty in architecture, in our homes, in music, etc. What a gift! As we look toward eternity which is primary, he has also equipped us to be workers in this life that we have right now. Some days, I think it would just be amazing if I could spend the whole day, not at work, just reading my scripture, singing praise music, and visiting the hurting day-after-day; but alas, the earthly responsibilities must be attended to in the midst of all of that. It’s a balance. In the toiling of careers and adulting, he has gifted us uniquely with gifts of the spirit. And as we use them, we create goodness while we’re here and also get to enjoy.
When I fall slave to this state of overwhelm that is all the clutter, I don’t see people. Failing to see needs and hurts and even their joys, I get trapped in a deafening whirlwind that blockades real connection. And we must have connection to create also. In every art, we must be roused by something that we can see, touch, feel or imagine – the physical creation around us, deep emotion, relationships and interactions with others, and super-natural and spiritual experiences. These are the driving forces behind creatives. They have to be recognized and then honed in on, and that takes intentional and specific mind and heart work.
The balance for me will be in both absorbing and creating. When I read riveting memoir, or commentary or a devotion from an author, both contemporary and classic, it makes me a better author as well. So, I will continue to read and learn from their form and style and content. But I will turn off much of the white noise from videos and reels and posts that inundate me during the doom scroll on my phone.
I will stop to really see the people in my life. I will deny the selfish pull toward being just entertained. I will sit in the quiet more often and reflect and absorb those things that will better serve my God and kingdom work, so that the result is also my becoming more like him in my earthly work.
Who will come with me?! Who else is a busy Martha wholly distracted and needing to repent of putting tasks and busyness above adoration of our Savior? Which of my friends can so feel this? The FOG – we call brain fog. And so it may be, but the fog in our brains flows over to our hearts and keeps all the goodness from Him from coming out of us. You know those spiritual gifts that we’ve all been given? You remember that dream that’s been tugging on your heart for as long as you can remember? The one you haven’t been able to quite hone in on? You remember that fruit that is supposed to be growing out of us?
Yep. Fruit must grow in the fertile soil of prayer and reading, studying the Word; but mostly from sweet adoration and praise of and seeking our Lord.
Who else wants to completely embrace and exercise those gifts he’s planted in us? I do! I so do!
We can do this. He will do it in us. We only need to seek and seek Him again. We’ve got to be quiet and turn off the never-ending noise. We have to make space for the spiritual, in the midst of all the earthly. Let’s go, Friends. You pray for me to grow in this and I’ll pray for you.
For more on Mary and Martha, go here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010%3A38-42&version=NIV
For more on spiritual gifts, go here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2012&version=ESV
For more on that fruit, go here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205&version=NIV
Mining Beneath the Ordinary 