Snow was my downfall. This morning, I woke up early enough, made breakfast for Linda (Don't get all excited; it's not a big deal. An English muffin with peanut butter and coffee), and worked out. We've had a lot of snow over the past two days, and though I've kept up with it, what we got overnight was heavy. It was important that I get the driveway plowed again before it got rutted by driving on it.
The snow was so heavy I had to bucket it out most of it with the loader, which made an hour's job stretch out to twice as much time. Just as I was finishing, neighbor Dan came walking up the driveway. The town plow had buried his car behind three feet of heavy snow. He was working on it with a shovel, but without help, would have been at it all day. Another hour.
Linda handed me a bird feeder that needed some repair, and I needed to get to Tractor Supply to get a roof rake. The amount of snow we've had can collapse roofs when it gets wet, which will happen when the temperature rises later in the week. Before I knew it, the day was almost over. It was time for worship team rehearsal and men's group.
The long and short of it is, I jumped right into the day; I didn't stop first thing in the morning for my Bible and prayer time. I had half an hour late in the afternoon, but getting one's heart in the right frame of mind to actually hear from God doesn't happen instantaneously upon demand. We usually need time to still all the commotion that drowns out the voice of God.
The ancients had a regimen called the Lectio Divina ("Divine Word") that deliberately slows us down so we are ready to hear. At this time of the year, we talk and sing about peace on earth and Silent Night, where all is calm; when in reality, there is little calmness and peace as we rush here and there, shopping, baking, decorating, attending parties and concerts. This morning I made the mistake of rushing into the day without calming my soul in the presence of Christ, and I paid for it all day with an agitated spirit. Tomorrow morning, I have an early breakfast with a friend, but I am not going to make the same mistake twice. Time in the presence of God is too important to miss. The Good News is what Jeremiah wrote of in Lamentations 3. "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness." Every day is a new gift with the opportunity to correct the mistakes of the day before. Which is what I plan to do first thing in the morning.
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