Rhythm

Never have been consider one with rhythm. Even though the drum was my instrument of choice in the junior high band, my teacher never once mentioned that a protegee lay inside me waiting to be discovered. After all, the drum choice was more about not having to learn to read music then an actual passion for creating the beat. Have found little in the relationship between my muscles and nerves that show a gift of rhythm.

However, God calls me to a rhythm that has nothing to do with the coordination of my body and far more about the beat of my heart. Am I in rhythm with him? Is the flow of my life in line with His pace or am I once again dancing to the beat of my own drum?

God has given the natural world around us a rhythm. Spring/summer/fall/winter, morning/day/evening/night, sowing/growing/harvesting/resting, birth/child/youth/adult. These are God’s inescapable patterns.

However, I fail to find a pattern in my life when chasing the bright shiny bobbles that too often catch my eye. Look at all I have to get done today? What do I need to push aside so I can move forward? What other information do I need so I know it all? Who is ahead of me and what do I need to do to catch up? What new luxury do I need to impress those around me? Can’t everyone see how important I am? If they would just do it MY way they could be just like me.

Oh how the world needs my management and input. If I leave it alone for just a few seconds everything falls a part. Blindly I plunge ahead not comprehending, this is what breaks my rhythm. This is the way the world cuts me off from God.

When there are those all too short seasons of unbroken rhythm in my life, there comes a peace, a comfort and a joy that can not be explained except to know I am on beat with Him. Not that everything is perfect. Problems do not just simply vanish but the importance I place on them does. Romans 8:6

Jesus showed us the beat, the perfect life in rhythm with God. It does not come by managing the world. It comes when following the One who created it.

Margin

mar·gin [mahr-jin] –noun
1. an amount allowed or available beyond what is actually necessary: to allow a margin for error.

Margin has become a word often spoken around me the past few weeks. Books are not written to the edge of the page, is this the way life should be lived? Push it to the edge!!

To the edge with my schedule, where there is no margin of time to give away when someone is in need of it. To the edge living between right and wrong, where the slightest slip and the lack of margin can cause disaster. To the edge in my finances, where every dollar (even that portion given away) is committed leaving no margin to react to those God places in my path today. To the edge in filling my mind and space with a continuous something, not anticipating that most of what God teaches comes in the margins.

How I need margin. The wide kind of margin you find in a good book or Bible. Good publishers do not fear the use of paper. Allows for places to pause and take note of what is going on. There is so little room to stop when running along the edge and the first place to cut becomes the margin.

Lord, provide me patience and humbleness to remove my definition of what is absolutely necessary and give you the margin to define what it means to go “beyond the necessary” in my life.

A Year and Half Between Posts

Been sometime since I used the Blog tool on my computer. Was getting too wrapped up in writing to be seen instead of just a journal of what God was doing in my heart. Have no plans to post on a daily basis but thought it may be good to jot down a few notes now and then to see where this leads.

Writing often slows everything down and allows the Spirit to connect the things God is doing around me. Spend way too much time wrapped up with the dealings going on inside this skin that I easily become a blind man walking among miracles. How I pray God grants focus and wisdom to see the kingdom as it unfolds. May His glory be seen and His voice be heard.