I have this fear of wasting time... Not to do something worthwhile. Not to be able to show something for my time spent. Not to produce... I measure the success of my day in the things done to make the world a better place. Things produced... Beauty created. And the hours in between as wasted. Wasted with things like cooking and washing and talking and reading and relaxing. The mundane. Nothing to show. What a waste!
But I don't get this sense of urgency when I read my Bible. When I read about Abraham waiting for the promise, he had to wait more than 20 years... And that man Noah, he worked and waited 100 years for that first rain to fall... I can go on. The Israelites in Egypt must have thought, after 400 years, forgotten and forlorn... And then Jesus. It seems as if He wasted a lot of time... When his good friend Lazarus was ill, He waited some more days, before going to him. He was never too busy to tend to the needy, the sick, the children... Nothing too unimportant for His time. I get a picture of Him as relaxed, unhurried... Then I read the Words in Mat 6:26: "Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more than birds... " Jesus says further in Mat 11: "Are you tired? Come to Me. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." And I yearn for this: freedom and lightness... In my daily life. And I come to see that it is not in the doing, but in the being, that we learn to live in His grace every moment. That time is His. That I cannot 'waste' time that wasn't mine in the first place to take, to possess. I come to see that all of life to be sacred. Because I share it with Him. Every act becomes a small sacrament of love. Not wasted, but consecrated. To hang the washing against a blue sky, to cut the beans... Nothing wasted... Everything part of the whole. And I feel blessed...
And my heart prays: "teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I pray for the Spirit to teach me how to move at the pace of grace, rather than of my own hurried, self-driven pace. To live an unhurried life. Connected deeply to the One who is rooted in Eternity...
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To savour abundance... I think it to be a most important spiritual discipline. To take time every day to walk slowly, to inhale deeply, to see clearly. Because it is there, all around us, for everyone to see. The splendour. The fullness. What better way than to go to the garden with eyes to see beauty. To see growth, harmony, abundance... I need the lesson that Dirk told our 7 year old son: "nothing in this world is perfect". Life disappoints. Things break, get dirty, get stolen. People get tired, sick, discouraged... But it is faith that keeps us, holds us. Because God never changes. He is always abundant, generous, faithful, loving. And I walk through our garden and I see it, feel it. And it overrides my own weak heart, uplifts my feeble spirit and gives me new eyes to see...
It got worse, before it got better... The process of rebuilding, redeeming, making new, began... Everything needed to be stripped. The plaster had to go, the old roof. Sometimes even a wall, to let the light through... It was like stripping to the bone. Ugly, naked. It was painful. Even now, two years later. On this beautiful clear day, sitting comfortably in our home, it's hard to look back. But sometimes we need to look our past in the eye. To see where we are coming from. To be able to see the miracle. The grace that surrounds us. All the time... And slowly it got better. New plaster. New roof. New paint and glass. With hard work. As soon as the doors and windows could close, we moved in, me and the kids. Dirk had to carry on with his work in East London for 10 more months, driving up and down every weekend, bringing our belongings home... We could start to make us a home. A place to live freely. To discover who we are. To learn to walk this earth redeemed and whole... And here I am two years later. Still learning. Still building. But living in this grace everyday...
We were at the end of the road. Trapped in a life that wasn't us. The daddy in business outside the house. The mommy with kids trying to make it on their own... We wanted to get out. Escape. Build something real. Together. We got this dream of a farm. Working together. Something organic. Sowing, reaping. We didn't know the hard work it takes to build your dream. The courage it takes. The time it takes. The many points in the road where you lose hope. Where you must battle again to regain faith. Sometimes better not to know. Just knowing enough to take the next step. We stumbled on a little farm near the little town Molteno in the Eastern Cape. In the middle of nowhere... Nothing breathtaking, at all... This couldn't be our dream! Dreams are meant to be beautiful... Dreams are making things better, not worse. Dreams are easy and fun. Not run-down and dead. When you look with your mind's eye...yes... We had to learn to look through another kind of eyes. All-knowing eyes, looking through love. Never giving up on the ugly, the seamingly dead, the discarded. We had to trust those eyes. Looking beneath the surface. Trust the stirring inside. Of possibillities. We had to push forward. Through everyone's warnings. We had to make sure this is from God. Not our own little dream pushed into being, but a bigger dream flowing, without us knowing where it will take us... We had to claim the promise. Believe it. And then live it. That was the hard part. We made a camp in the poplar grove. The kids and I moved there to stay. Lived there for 3 months. Between the trees and this unknown soil. Claim it as ours. Lived into it. Daddy coming 'home' every weekend from his business-life in East London, 300km away. Starting to build up. With no background or knowledge of farming. No easy way. Feeling our way forward. Google becomes our best friend. The way to learn. Walking with our ears and eyes and hearts open, to learn the way... And little by little we could see the blessings. First fresh water, streaming from deep out of the earth, after fixing the old broken 'windpomp'. The first leaves in spring. Blossoms on old neglected trees. Promises of fruit to come. Friendly neighbours welcoming us. Silence around us. The view every morning getting out of the tent. Our hearts growing into the peace around. Slowly but surely... To be continued...
We saw the dam drying up... the rain didn't come. The earth got hard and dusty. Drained of colour. Our hearts heavy. The rain didn't come. I began to read a new book: "Beloved dust". About us humans created from the earth, dirt, dust. And our Creator loving us in our dustness. No need to cover up... And the message could go deep with me, walking across the naked bottom of the dam. All cracked in the heat of the ruthless sun. Me human. So weak and dusty in myself. I couldn't bring the rain, not with all my talents or good deeds or kindness. I'm the created, coming from this dust. But the difference in the knowing: my Creator loves me in this weak place. And it makes all the difference. And I could walk over the dry cracks with hope, of a Father being with me there in the middle of the drought, the suffering. Then I went to my canvas. I start playing with the colours of mud and dust, not knowing where I'm going. Nothing beautiful. Just playing... And then it happened... While in the middle of that playing in the muddy dust, the first drops came... literally falling on the still wet paint (for I was working in my wooden outside cabin) and making the most beautiful splashes and spontaneous stains in the oil paint. How ironic... So I finished the painting, letting the rain marks show through the paint. Painting the hope into the dust. After 10 days of rain the dam was full. Abundantly so. The dust covered. But I have this picture to remind me of the hard days. Of what was exposed on the bottom of the dam, as in my own heart. But also of hope. Of water covering up. Grace flowing like water. Always again... And I'm the child walking towards the light. Not giving up. 'Cause I know where I'm going...
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Johanneke strydomLiving in God's grace daily. Archives
October 2017
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