All Consuming

It's summer.  I always have to have a project in the summer.  This year it was to finish the novel I'm writing in time to query an agent with it before school starts.  It may happen and it may not.  I write not so much from the discipline of it, but for the pleasure and that makes my deadlines very fluid as far as I'm concerned.  Usually around early August, if not late July, I'm feeling a little restless and ready to get back to doing something productive with my day.  Back to work.  This year it seems to be happening to me a little earlier.  I'm not resting as well at night and am feeling restless during the day.  My house is clean.  That's good.  The cupboards have groceries in them.  That's good.  My closet is even tidy.  That's very good.  I'm alternating between consuming and consuming - snacks and goods.  Not the best choices.

Do you have times of boredom?  The routine is just too routine or you feel like you're a living example of  Solomon's profundity:  there's nothing new under the sun?  Too many days spent that way can consume you by turning you into a consumer.  Swallowing up hours of television, cart loads of  products, towers to treats.  Your mind turns to mush and then when you try to turn it toward something of value, like a book, it's hard to focus.  Your  ability to concentrate has been minimized.  It's a vicious cycle.

I suspect Jesus never got bored.  He often went off to be alone, to find a quiet place to pray; but even then He was focused.  He had a limited number of years to accomplish all He'd been sent to do.  He knew time was precious.

You see, that's the paradox for me.  If someone wastes my money, I'm a little irritated by it.  But, let someone waste my time and I am irate.  Time can never be retrieved.  Once it's gone, it's gone.  To waste it is an absolute sin!  Yet, here I am wasting my own time.  I, like Jesus, have a limited number of years to accomplish the things I've been placed here to do.  I know time is precious.  I know that even in the midst of my quiet life I need to be working toward something.  The farmer who sows and waters and waits is expecting a harvest.  My life's work can't be simply for the day only.  There must be a harvest in the end.

So, here I am on July 5th.  It's still over a month until I have to be back at school getting ready for the first day.  That's ample time to accomplish something.  I want it to be something of worth.  Maybe instead of consuming I should give?  Maybe instead of wasting time wandering room to room or shop to shop, paging through book after book and magazine after magazine, surfing site to site, I should consider investing time in something of value:  someone.  Could you, too?

Right now, I'm signing off.  I'm going to find someone to serve in some way today.