Patching Cracks

 

April 4, 2018



Like many others around the country, I have spent the last week complaining about the time change and the havoc it wreaks on my natural living rhythms. I tend to wake up at the same time every day, and I get tired about the same time regardless of what the clock actually says. The clock impacts my daily planning and my commitments, but it can’t change certain aspects of life. I get tired when I get tired. I get hungry when I get hungry. Reflecting on this brought to mind Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes 3, which most folks are familiar with because they were used as the lyrics to a Byrds song in the 60s. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal…” The passage goes on from there, with a wide variety of aspects of life mentioned. There are a lot of bits of wisdom to glean from Solomon’s words. The one that jumped out at me was that our lives tend to run in a balance. As a farming community, most folks are pretty clear that planting happens when the weather and the seasons dictate. In the same way, harvest happens when the maturity of the plants dictates. We can’t arbitrarily decide such things. There is a great deal of life that works this way, and our attempts to force the world to work otherwise won’t be very successful in the long run. One excellent example of this is found in the balance of work and rest. It’s pretty common for folks to overemphasize the importance of work or busyness. I tend to fall into this trap. Work becomes so important that times of rest become opportunities to do different kinds of work. It’s understandable why this is the case. Hard work is admirable and it’s easy to lose yourself in it. Beyond that, work is a natural part of who men are. We want to do meaningful things and provide for our families. However, when work shifts from its natural time frame in our lives and begins consuming our rest time, things tend to break down. Work becomes less efficient. Family life begins to suffer. One of the minor prophets points out that when you neglect taking sabbath long enough, eventually you’ll be forced to take rest. This happens when folks get sick or burned out and are forced to stop and rest to recover.


Solomon points out a few other cycles in life that must be attended to in order to live as we were created to live. In verse 4, he says that there is: “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” The truth in this is significant and often overlooked. I’ve known many people over the years who simply ignore pain or difficulty because it’s unpleasant. Instead, they stay busy or do their best to remain entertained so they’re distracted from the less pleasant things in life. Unfortunately, people are designed to process through emotions and move on. If we ignore them, they tend to pile up and leak out into other areas of our lives. It’s not uncommon for folks with unresolved grief to develop anger issues or anxiety problems. This is because we were designed to go through emotionally challenging times in our lives and move on. Avoiding them doesn’t make them not happen, it just postpones them.


The neat thing about this topic is that it’s a natural thing that our bodies notify us about. When it’s time to rest, our bodies tell us. When we are beginning to burn out, our bodies tell us. When we are sad, our bodies tell us. The hard part of the matter is listening and choosing to rest when it’s time to rest, or mourn when it’s time to mourn.

 
 

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