Wednesday Wonder

Sometimes when I sit down to write this Wednesday Wonder (or WW as Elizabeth and I affectionately call it), I am inspired and brimming with ideas. I have to decide which idea to use this week. Unfortunately, I often forget to write the other ideas down and they get lost to the ether. So busy getting the one idea out, that the others are simply forgotten, perhaps even for good.

This is not unique to writing WW. It often feels like the way life goes. Things come in and things go out. Life ebbs and flows. Ideas come and go. People enter our lives, some stay, some go. Some days feel full, maybe even overly so. Others feel empty and take forever to pass. I remember something today, and tomorrow it is gone.

Have you ever thought that you would like to just know that every day will flow as it should? No, just me then? What the flow should look like needs to be my vision for the day. Ever feel that? No, just me again?

I have recently been listening to an audio book about getting a big project done. Surprisingly, it is not written by someone who is known for advice on time management. It is someone I discovered because she talks about happiness and how to have more in your life.

One of the suggestions for getting a big project done that she offered was to set up your space to maximize success. That means minimizing distractions. These days, anything with a screen can become a distraction. How many times have I sat down to just spend a few minutes playing a game or checking the latest headlines before I move on to my project, only to look up and realize an hour is gone? Maybe you do the same.

And, if it is headlines that have distracted me, they can even completely derail my day. It is referred to as going down the rabbit hole, when you just keep clicking and clicking to see if you can find other stories related to the one you started with when you sat down. Unfortunately, the state of the world sometimes means I forget what it was I originally thought I would do after those ‘few minutes’ I was going to spend.

Lately, that has been happening to me as I binge watch an old show that I used to enjoy. I still enjoy it, although not all of it has stood the test of time. The late 1980s were a very different time, and yet not so much. The whole evening is gone before I realize what I have done.

This show is upbeat and makes me smile and laugh out loud often, but not everything we allow to consume us does. And I say consume us rather than us consume it, for it does feel that way at times. My spouse gets consumed by the state of the world and just keeps clicking. His screen rarely makes him laugh like mine does.

You are likely reading this on a screen. May this be something that consumes you in a positive way.

What is it consuming us these days? We are in the midst of Lent. Is prayer consuming us? Is some other spiritual practice consuming us? Imagine what the world, even our own small part it, would be like if that is what was consuming us all these days. Things wouldn’t be perfect, but they might not feel like the place is on fire and rolling ever faster down the road to destruction.

Lent is a time to help pull ourselves back from the brink. A time to ensure that God is leading and we are following in faith. We are not always sure where God will lead. We are not always sure we want to follow. God says, “Trust me.” That is a request that should be easier to meet than anyone else’s.

I may forget many ideas from one day, even one moment to another. Trusting in God, is not one of them.

Trust that time with God is a good place to be consumed.