Slow Down

A couple of years ago, I bought a machine to wash my windows. I thought it would be more effective than the method I’d been using (basically a bucket and sponge with a scraper). A little disappointing: it does the job, but no easier and with streaks. 

I’d gotten it to clean the dirt and bugs off the windows. Recently I realised that without the attachment, it could be used to suck up condensation after showers, baths, and drying clothes indoors. It seems to be pretty effective at that so far.

The Bible is God’s perfect window-cleaner. It can leave streaks if I cherry-pick verses to support my prejudices, presenting a distortion of the truth. When used prayerfully, though, mindful of the character of God, reliant on his Holy Spirit, it can suck up the condensation of my assumptions and presumptions and transform my thinking.

To read it like that, I need to slow down, take time, and linger expectantly in the presence of the Almighty God. What a privilege and blessing. The Almighty God. Wow.

Note to self: Slow down.

Awkward

‘Tis the day before the night before Christmas, and I’ve made my list and been checking things off it as I go. Last Christmas card delivered to the farmer who lives about a mile and a half away – gave Dusty and I a long walk, slightly moist, but nothing like it is out there now – torrential.

Before that I zipped to Tesco to try to beat the rush. It was busy but not awful.

And got the potica set and rising in the warmish oven. A special sweet bread we always have on Christmas morning. It’s always a bit haphazard for me to make – only making it once a year, and with all these different types of yeast around now, and it being an American measurements recipe which I need to translate...however, today it is looking pretty ‘risen’ though I barely averted disaster. Nearly forgot to put the half pound of ground walnuts into the filling ...

Well, so finishing off that potica is fairly labor-intensive. A lot of scalding, grinding, rolling, etc, and as  I worked, little Indy the quirky cat seemed to be always at my feet. I thought she was hungry. But that didn’t satisfy.

Now as the potica bakes I have rushed upstairs to check emails and write this, and what do you know, here is wee Indy, no longer at my feet but now curled into a ball on my lap. 

That’s all she wanted. Me to slow down so she could curl up on a warm lap.

I believe God must feel like that with most of us. Certainly with me. Not that he’s round our feet but he is certainly nearby, waiting, hoping we might slow down and stop long enough that we can just sit together and bond, as they say.

I’m sorry, God. Just as soon as I finish this, upload it, and get the potica back out of the oven...

Remain

Remain. Abide.

Dusty and I strolled along the road, her sniffing the grass and plants, and me picking some of the small wild raspberries which line parts of the road and make wonderful jam. 

Some of the plants looked challenged and the berries were tiny and not worth picking. Others flourished and the fruit was still small, but plump and juicy. All in the freezer now, waiting til I’ve combined them with some of the big berries off our own canes in order to make a few jars of jam.

Jesus told his friends to remain in him and they would bear a lot of fruit. He said, rather cryptically, that they could do nothing on their own, but needed to remain in him and then they would be very fruitful.

It’s a foreign concept to most of us. We feel we have to do things – it’s that protestant work ethic perhaps, that elevates busyness beyond where it should be. Jesus commended his friend Mary who sat at his feet and listened to all he had to teach her rather than helping her busy sister Martha. He’d have been happy for Martha to sit at his feet, too. I get the impression he’d have been happy to make do with a simpler meal and enjoy spending time with his friends, imparting some of the knowledge he had to give them. 

We can’t sit at the feet of Jesus anymore, literally, but when we read his words in the Bible it’s as though we are sitting at his feet, and when we do it prayerfully, with a listening and open heart, it’s amazing how we ‘hear’ him speak to us through what we are reading.

I heard him today. Remain in me, he said. Abide in me. I’m trying to slow down, and do that.