“Remain in me and I will remain in you.” John 15:4
How can it be the last Monday in January? Didn’t we just celebrate New Year’s? Spring already looks loaded. Blossoms may be peeking out; sunny warmth should be sliding in to free up our winter spaces. Calendars are moving us to Easter!
So how are you moving through each day? What is centering you? I have set my phone alarm for daily moments to remind me to take a breath and check my focus on Jesus. You would think after 40 years with Jesus, I would have this completely in sync. Sigh….
Hear these words of Amy Carmichael:
“Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you will know what His will is.”
Amy spent 55 years in India serving the underserved, forgotten, thrown away. In those 55 years, Amy never returned to her home in Ireland. She loved, taught, wrote and lived in the neighborhood of those she gave her life to. Amy’s life habit didn’t include a phone alarm to remind her to be still. It was a cultivated habit, even through pain. The last twenty years of her life was spent living in her bed in pain from a fall.
She sounds like a saint right? Amy would look at you and say ‘and you are one too!’
“Saint” has nothing to do with human competence and everything to do with divine grace so Tyler Stanton reminds us in his book Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools.
As January comes to an end, take a breath. Hush your rush. Sit in the divine grace that is freely given so that we may live life, His will in our neighborhood.
Sweet Cindy Gaskins