After a lovely weekend trip to a Bed-n-Breakfast with my husband and we decided to take a drive through the countryside on the way back to the airport. Nothing but rolling hills and fresh cut hay could be seen for miles across the expansive horizon. About thirty minutes into our drive, I started sneezing. As time passed, my eyes watered and within sixty minutes my noses was running along with my sneezing and scratchy eyes. With wisdom, my husband said, “Maybe you are allergic to hay.”
My response, “Possible. But I actually think I am more allergic to the “nothingness” of what surrounds us.”
He laughed.
I didn’t laugh. I was frightened for myself. I know myself well. I was born on the move. When I was two, my grandmother nick-named me the “Go-Go Girl”, and not because I was a great dancer. I was frightened by the fact that I can’t (unless held down by a team of NFL Linebackers) be still. Motion makes me so much happier. This has been a life pattern. Being a passenger in the car without a to-do list and nothing to watch outside the car was testing me to the core.
Then suddenly I saw something moving on the horizon and felt a sudden burst of excitement in my spirit. (You may have already guessed, it was a farmer on a tractor.) But what is worse, I had this crazy desire to jump out of our moving vehicle, run into the field and ask the farmer if I could help him. Plowing the field, bailing hay, or simply driving the tracker seemed a better option than sitting idle in the car watching the world go by.
Ovid, an ancient Roman poet and author said: “Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” Ecclesiastes 4:6 says, “Better is one hand full of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind.”
Think about this scripture: “You are not made for the Sabbath; the Sabbath is made for you” (Mark 2:27). Rest, solitude, silence, celebration with others, and prayer were made as a gift for you and I to enjoy. Not only that, it is often in these moments of quiet that the greatest innovations and ideas come upon us. It is in the silence of watching the world go that God plants dreams in our heart and a fire in our spirit.
If you are like me, addicted to productivity, I challenge you to take a step towards rest, solitude, silence, prayer, or celebration with others (that doesn’t include you hosting). Start small. The rewards will amaze you!
What do you think?