From C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed:
My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time.
He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast.
Could we not say that this shattering is one of the marks of his presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the messiah in ruins. And most are “offended” by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens in our private prayers.
All reality iconoclastic.
Really, I think this is what I’m trying to articulate whenever I talk about things like this or this. (Okay, okay, “The Trouble With Beauty” and “The Offense of the Gospel” for those of you who hate blind clicks. ;) )
I’ve made a shift in the last two weeks, with the only thing written down more than a day ahead being meals.
Maybe I’ll be able to articulate it better in the future, but I wanted to say that I have put away my attempts at the card-file (a system for maintaining house), and weekly to-do lists, and have started just “doing what I see.”
Don’t worry, I’ve always had “selective seeing.”
Sallie’s recent post articulated this so perfectly:
I have come to the conclusion that [scheduling] is an area in which God is not going to allow me to be successful because He wants me to be dependent on Him. I say that in all seriousness, with no jesting. We’ve prayed about it, we’ve strategized, we’ve made commitments, and it simply does not work. I have to believe that God has a bigger purpose in my sanctification than keeping a nice schedule.
I love this image of daily dependency. It brings what has sometimes been an intangible something called a “spiritual discipline” into a realm where I can see it.
What is surprising me (the current “iconoclast”) is how my life feels more peaceful and complete just now than is often has when I was wrestling with a schedule.
I’m going to have to think about this one. It seems to me that there must be some kind of happy medium. Perhaps making a schedule, but then not freaking out when it doesn’t happen.
Ponder Ponder.
That’s another funny part, Dedee.
I haven’t (I don’t think) wigged out over any schedule-issue for a while.
And it’s not like I don’t have a plan. I do (like the post mentions) plan meals two weeks at a time now. But everything else I do, really, can be done “now.”
It takes no advance planning, and little or no prep. So I just do it until a minor crisis arises or something else needs my attention.
It does still take a level of discipline (which I am still working on), to choose to see— and act— but hmmm.
The best way I can think to describe it just now is like listening to intuition (though I always wonder where the dividing line is between “intuition” and “the Spirit’s leading” which is probably another post).
Hearing that niggling that x needs to be done, and doing it. That seems to make hearing easier the next time. And not doing it, or pretending I didn’t hear, makes me less sensitive.
Right now this is what “daily dependence” looks like for me.
My house can be less than completely clean (as it irregardless must be in this season of life) but I reach a point when I feel like I’ve accomplished the right amount for the day and am done.
I feel a real sense of accomplishment and completely at peace. Jen at “Et Tu?” shared a book excerpt that describes better than I can my feeling of assurance.
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