Zondervan Inspire

Some Things Cannot Be Experienced in a Hurry

Editor's Note: Enjoy this holiday reminder from Keri Wyatt Kent, one of our newest authors. Her book Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity is available in stores everywhere.

I’ve had a busy day, I’ve got to start dinner in an hour or so, but for now, I sit at the computer to finish this newsletter. I’ve got Michael Buble singing Let it Snow on the CD player, and it is, indeed, snowing outside my office window.

I don’t know about you, but I find December wonderful, but challenging. I want to slow down, enjoy the season and its true meaning. But the normal busyness created by our daily obligations (work, family, friends and just managing life) ramps up a notch when you add baking, writing cards, shopping (although greatly reduced this year), wrapping and simply planning.

I want to live a sanely-paced, God-focused life; a Sabbath Simplicity life. It’s never easy, because our culture keeps whispering in our ear (okay, sometimes shouting): “Hurry up, do more!” and the implication, stated or not, is that our value lies in what we accomplish. Something in us wants to protest, but we’re not sure we believe that we could be valued for who we are, instead of for what we do.

This month, don’t let holiday preparations consume you, robbing you of the joy this season is alleged to represent. take time to connect with those you love, to take some time to reflect, to rest.

I believe the holiday season should be a time of gratitude, hope and wonder. Such things cannot be experienced in a hurry.

We just returned from a trip to California to visit family for Thanksgiving. One of the things we were most thankful for was the weather out in San Diego—clear, sunny, unseasonably warm. We returned to find that winter had moved into Chicago, coating the trees and ground with several inches of s now.

While enjoying the California sunshine was great—we went hiking, waded in the Pacific, sat out by the pool—it’s good to be back to what feels like a proper December. In winter, the natural world responds to the shorter, cooler days by resting. Beneath the snow, soil and roots simply receive the slow watering that this frozen layer provides. Animals burrow into their nests, hiding and hibernating. The squirrels who have been busy gathering seeds and food for weeks are now tucked into big leafy nests in the willow tree behind the house. While we cannot sleep the winter away, we can learn from nature, and notice—there is a time for work, and a time for rest.

Advent has begun. The word itself means “coming”—we look forward to Jesus’ arrival. Yet for us, December is often a time of “going”—we have too many places to go, hurrying and scurrying to the point where we are simply tired. We’re too exhausted to be grateful, too busy to wonder.

Our family lights candles at Advent—one each Sunday. We work hard all week—kids at school, Scot and I at our jobs and with all the holiday preparations. But on Sunday, we slow down. We worship at church, we gather at home. We enjoy a meal together. We light a candle, reminding each other of the promises the season represents. We get enough sleep, if only that one night. That alone inspires gratitude.

Sabbath Simplicity involves taking one day to rest—which means we spend the other six fully engaged in the work we must do, the work we can even enjoy. I find that when I rest on Sunday—setting aside housework, keeping the computer turned off, enjoying my family—I am ready to get things done on Monday, and much more efficiently. Retailers often try to boost holiday sales by telling us, “Don’t just buy things for others, treat yourself as well. Buy something for you, too.” Well, okay, but you still have to pay for whatever you buy. When you treat yourself, you still get the credit card bill in January.

Rather than just buying something for yourself, why not simply receive the gift that God offers this month? In the midst of the busyness, stop. Sabbath. The word means “to cease”—whether our work is done or not. Simply rest for one day, enjoy God and all he’s already given you—family, friends. Once a week, reconnect with the true reason for the season.


Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity by Keri Wyatt Kent

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Technorati tags: Keri Wyatt Kent, Rest, life, Christian, Sabbath, holidays, Zondervan

"Life Is What Happens When You’re Busy Making Other Plans"

Editor's Note: Join Shauna Niequist in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Friday, December 12, at Barnes & Noble, Rivertown Crossings Mall, 5:30-7:00 p.m. for a book signing. Now, enjoy an excerpt from Shauna's book, Cold Tangerines.

I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin....

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.

The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearls. And strung together, built upon one another, lined up through the days and the years, they make a life, a person. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies. But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets — this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience.

I believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free to observe the lives we have been creating all along without even realizing it.

I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. The big moments are in every hour, every conversation, every meal, every meeting.


Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life by Shauna Niequist

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Technorati tags: Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines, life, Christian, Zondervan

Fly Beyond the Stars

From the Editor: I don’t know who produced this photographic art, but it’s a tasteful and beautiful expression of creation. Any other thoughts on this subject?

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

How does a Christian create art that reflects God's beauty? Is the artist limited to representing only what we observe in God's creation? Francis Schaeffer finds God's design for the Jewish priest's garments to be instructive: "Make pomegranates of blue, purple and scarlet yarn around the hem of the robe, with gold bells between them" (Exodus 28:33). "In nature," he wrote, "pomegranates are red, but these pomegranates were to be blue, purple and scarlet. Purple and scarlet could be natural changes in the growth of a pomegranate. But blue isn't. The implication is that there is freedom to make something which gets its impetus from nature that can be different from it, and it too can be brought into the presence of God."

Schaeffer concludes, "What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.... Christians ought not to be threatened by fantasy and imagination.... The Christian is the really free man — he is free to have imagination. This is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars."

From A Faith and Culture Devotional: Daily Readings on Art, Science, and Life

by Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington

Build on the Rock

From the Editor: Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” Obedience provides a foundation in our lives that will enable us to weather the storms.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

"Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? As for those who come to me and hear my words and put them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But those who hear my words and do not put them into practice are like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete" (Luke 6:46–49). Listen to Luke 6:41–49.

Extra: Listen to Denzel Washington in Song of Songs

From Inspired By ... The Bible Experience™: The Complete Bible

The Life Your Parched Soul Craves

From the Editor: Starting in December, the Daily Inspiration emails will be coming to you Monday through Friday only. I noticed that open rates tend to be significantly lower on the weekends, which tells us that most people read the emails Monday through Friday. I hope you find this change beneficial, as sometimes too many emails can be a problem as well.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

"Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.' By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive" (John 7:37–39).

Jesus' message was: The life your parched soul craves is now available to all who learn to do life moment by moment with God. As we become comfortable doing life with God, we begin to experience the power of his life flowing up into our often lifeless world — a power that brings peace even in the storms, a power that gives self-control even when we're angry, a power to live a life of freedom from the chains that enslave us, a power to develop deep, authentic relationships, a power to love even the most difficult people, and the power to experience a joy in the moments of each day as every moment of life becomes alive with new possibilities.

From Soul Revolution: How Imperfect People Become All God Intended

by John Burke

His Very Best

From the Editor: I believe our definition of what is “best” needs to change. God values our faith, which is “of greater worth than gold.” God’s best can mean painful and uncomfortable trials (1 Peter 1:3-7).

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

It seems the entire world is searching for happiness, love, and fulfillment. Yet so many of us search for these things everywhere except where they truly can be found — in God alone. Even as believers in Him, we as Christians often have a warped view of God, seeing Him as somewhat stingy, carefully doling out His blessings — a little here and a little there. Yet the apostle Paul wrote, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

In essence, Paul is asking us this question, "Isn't it absurd to think that if God gave us the very life of His Son, that there is anything He would willingly withhold from us? After all, He has already given us the very best!"

From Look Unto Me: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon

by Jim Reimann

Constantly Learning

From the Editor: Author Joe Hilley hits on an important truth in today's excerpt that I believe applies to most of us in this fast-changing world we find ourselves in.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

An approach of constantly learning is a style demanded by the age in which we live. With information growing at an incalculable rate, no one can hold command of every detail in every discipline. Leaders who are effective will develop familiarity with a wide range of subjects rather than a depth of detail in a few. By developing a working knowledge covering a wide range of subjects, leaders will be free to rise above individual issues to see the whole picture — the manner in which the issues are related, and the comparative value of each issue.

From Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader

by Joe Hilley

Healthy Relationships Maintain Balance

From the Editor: For task-oriented people like me, this is so important to remember.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

"God does not demand of me that I accomplish great things. He does demand of me that I strive for excellence in my relationships."
—Ted W. Engstrom, The Making of a Christian Leader

There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to do great things for God — and accomplishing great things for him. The problem is that it's just too easy to start doing the great things for yourself and not for him. It can happen in the blink of an eye. Service is then replaced with selfishness. We all struggle with selfishness, so how do we protect ourselves from letting our ego take center stage? That's where the priority of relationships comes in! A healthy relationship with God and healthy relationships with others have the power to keep our commitments to the things and the tasks in our lives from getting out of balance.

From The Relationship Principles of Jesus

by Tom Holladay

Best Indicator of My Beliefs

From the Editor: Jon Ortberg is one of my favorite authors. This excerpt from his latest book harkens back to the old proverb, “Actions speak louder than words.” A good reminder.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith

I have three different kinds of convictions. We might think of them in this way: what I say I believe; what I think I believe; and what I reveal I really do believe by my actions.

The best indicator of my true beliefs and my true purposes are my actions. They always flow out of my mental map about the way things really are. What I say I believe might be bogus. What I think I believe might be fickle. But I never violate my idea about the way things are. I always live in a way that reflects my mental map. I live at the mercy of my ideas about the way things really are. Always. And so do you.

From Faith & Doubt

by John Ortberg

Any comments or testimonies today?

Competing Values Cannot Coexist

From the Editor: I don’t know about you, but “balance” is something I fight with continually. Tom presents an interesting perspective here, yet other authors preach balance as an essential part of the modern workplace.

The other thing that strikes me is this: At what point do you cross the threshold from earning a living to loving money?

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

As we consider our priorities, three relational truths from Matthew 6:24-33 are vital. First, notice that Jesus said we "cannot serve both God and money." He didn't say "should not" or "might not want to attempt to"; he said "cannot." Jesus teaches us that competing values cannot coexist. One will overwhelm the other.

Our modern-day answer is, "I'll manage my life better, and then I'll be able to do more! I'll find time for being completely committed to God and for making money — and for recreation and career and hobbies too!" Jesus says, "You cannot serve both God and money," and we think, "Well, Jesus obviously didn't understand how to multitask!" It doesn't matter how well you manage your life or how many laborsaving, time-saving devices you buy; if you try to hold on to competing values, one will always overwhelm the other.

From The Relationship Principles of Jesus

by Tom Holladay