The ability to think deeply is both a skill and a gift. It is also a discipline that is often given short shrift in our information packed, media dominated and frenetically paced world. Most people simply do not have time to think deeply. It is easier to be busy and distracted than deliberative and thoughtful.
The deepest thinking is obviously about God and His word: witness the number of times in the Psalms that David speaks of meditating on the Word. It is almost novel today for people to read through the Bible and yet it is the source of our most profound understanding of ourselves, God, life and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. When life crowds this out we have lost our most valuable source.
Or take the priorities of our lives: work, marriage, finances, time management, relationships and even physical health. The business of life leads to an autopilot existence where we fall into deep ruts without even thinking about it. And that is the problem: we are not taking the time to think deeply, consider carefully and prayerfully evaluate our lives. One day we wake up and think, "how did I get here or allow that to happen?"
It is the lack of careful consideration of our lives that causes the regrets we have in later life. One of my goals is to minimize the regrets because we cannot do life or relationships over. I am sure that many couples who have drifted apart in their marriage realize that there were things that could have prevented the drift had they taken the time to become aware and do something about it. In too many cases we put a lot of thinking into our careers and work to the neglect of other priorities in life which then suffer as a consequence.
We often feel we are too busy to take time to sit still, take that walk, spend time with God or sit in a peaceful place to think. In truth we would be far happier and more productive if we did. It is then that we can gain a needed perspective on our lives, relationships, marriages, work and the many things that are core to our existence. Time to think is never wasted time. Activity that drives out that time is wasted time.
Posted on Sabbatical (time to think)
1 comment:
Amen! There are so many areas of life (as well as ministry) that can only flourish when we take the time, or the discipline or whatever's required, to reflect cognitively and imaginatively upon the significance of the mess of impressions, situations, narratives and dramas that crowd into our consciousness every moment.
We neglect this art and discipline to the peril not only of ourselves but (the more responsibility or influence we have) those around us.
Thank you for this exhortation... and for modeling it well for those you lead.
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