Grounded

The theme for what God is seeking to do in me can be summed up around the work grounded. I am so easily pulled away, seduced into what is easy and popular — like speaking, new projects, getting overextended, doing the easy (be active) rather than think and do the best. Today I am headed for 24 hours alone with God (something now in our Rule of Life as pastoral staff at NLF that we are all to do 1x a month) at a nearby retreat center. They have a hermitage that is both simple and lovely.  I have taken it very slow this week, working minimally to compensate for the heavy previous week with the EHS conference. I am feeling refreshed physically and emotionally. Yet I can feel the weight of demands pressing around me — sermon on Eph. 6:10ff for Sunday to prepare, staff issues, running NLF, and the numbers of people wanting to talk about EHS.   Living grounded in God is simply hard. The sin of activism truly is, as  Bernard said in the 1200’s, easy to commit than the discipline of being in solitude with God. Preaching about pausing to be with God is easier than living it. I have to remind myself now: “This is hard Pete, because it really is hard. You are not above the struggling human race!” What keeps you from pausing to be with God in a consistent, rhythmic way each day?