Distracted & Scattered: Creating Space for Jesus
Distracted and Scattered.
That's how I have felt lately. Very distracted and a bit all over the place.
I really dislike the me that is distracted and scattered. When the kids were younger, I lived in this place. I thought I thrived in chaos, even had a shirt that said Chaos Coordinator, but I was fooling myself.
No one thrives here.
There are seasons of our lives when life is just chaotic. I recently heard the term Maycember. I had never heard this before, but once I did it was like, yea, I get that. May is so packed with all the things. End of school year, graduations, end of season for sports, Mother's Day, summer around the corner ... and try throwing a life on top of that.
Exhausting. Distracting. (and chaotic)
This year, my calendar has been less full. It's been a long (but good) year of pruning back and finding contentment with less.
Less obligations.
Less spending.
Less distraction.
So when I found myself here, I started to question, why?
I thought I had stepped away from all of that ... and I have, but there's additional pruning that needs to happen. There's still things that are pulling my attention from the things that matter.
The Bible talks about pruning in John 15, and while I think this is pruning, it's a baby pruning. We have been through a considerable amount of spiritual pruning over the past 10 years, but this is just a baby pruning. (I will write more about spiritual pruning at another time)
Reset. I've been slowly resetting spaces inside of my home. This is an attempt at a couple of things.
One, I am decluttering. This is not a Marie Condo reset, but this is a decluttering of stuff. Stuff we don't need. Stuff that is clutter. Stuff that is distracting.
Two, I want to make them more like me. I have always loved a good home renovation project, but this isn't that. This is just a cleaning of the space. Resetting decor, maybe a new coat of paint. Small things, but things that bring it into more my style.
This is happening so very slowly, but after each space I feel very accomplished. Cleansed even.
I looked at my home office this week and started to twitch. Distraction central. This area which was once designed to be my creative space had become the family dump zone. From coats, to school paperwork, Amazon boxes - I could go on and on, but let's just say all the things.
I'll spare the details of the actual process, but my office is back to the creative space it was designed for, with a few tweaks. I've added and subtracted a few things to adjust it to my now - and it feels so good. It feels less, and so much more all at the same time. (here's a couple pictures of the reset)
This distraction and scattered feeling has me changing a good bit of my normal lately.
I find myself turning on the TV much less, logging out of social media, enjoying the yard, taking walks outside, finding peace in less. I have shared thoughts on this before, but in doing this I believe we actually create space for more. We create space for all sorts of other things. How you choose to use this space is completely up to you. I want more of things that fill my cup, most importantly - Jesus.
My Pastor shared this thought a couple of weeks ago: We have a tendency to fill ourselves up with things that satisfy for a minute, but are not the things of God. If you want to be filled with the Spirit of God, you have to make room for Him. As He gets more of you, He fills you with His Spirit. If we give Him access, He will fill it. But we have to show up empty: not full of self, sin, stuff (distractions).
You get the choice to decide to have your cup filled with this or that. You get to pick. God loves empty cups, because if our cups are full to the top, He has no room to fill us. Get into the discipline of emptying yourself.
There's so much I could say about emptying yourself, but a lot of this is what I call 'creating space'. Simply creating space for the things I want in my life vs the things I have to have in my life.
Yes, we have to work.
Yes, our family obligations are demanding.
Yes, there's so much stuff we could be doing.
But do we have to do them all?
I think no, and I think there's a real beauty in being able to say no.
To prune out your life so much that you have the focus (and room) to say Yes to what's most important.
I am by no stretch perfect at this. In fact, this is a daily choice for me. A daily choice to keep that space that I created. To give God the space - the room - to reset me. To allow Him to declutter and cleanse me.
Every single day.
I'll link to the actual sermon (https://bit.ly/3onRqk0), but our pastor offered two prayers to help with the emptying and filling that I have found to be so perfect, I'll just share them here:
Emptying Prayer: God is there anything in my life that needs to Go in order to make room for You? I lay down my calendar, my resources, my relationships, my pride and my self- reliance. I empty myself and humbly come to you in need of a fresh filling of your Holy Spirit. I don’t want to settle for anything less than You are offering.
Filling Prayer: God, please fill me with your Holy Spirit. You can have all of me. There is nothing in my life that is off limits. As I align my life to your truth, would you allow me to experience more of your nearness and your power in my life. Please give me a fresh filling with your Holy Spirit.
God wants the best for us. He never wants us to settle in life, relationships or faith. When we embrace this as truth, we can draw nearer to Him in a deep and intimate way. We can experience freedom in what He has for us - but we have to have room for Him.
Have you made room for God lately?