Manna Minute

 

Unforced Rhythms of Grace

 By Hazel Blackstone

 

It was one of those “wipe out” weeks for me.  I sat at my desk staring at my to-do list, feeling listless and dry.  An unbelievable schedule lay before me.  While shaking my head and wondering how my life had spun out of control the phone rang resulting in one more responsibility added to the list.  I felt drained with nothing to give, but yet those deadlines sitting before me demanded action.  Even though pressure was on to begin that list, the enormity of the tasks crowded in, suffocating me.  My recourse?  Take a walk to clear my mind and talk to the Lord.  During the walk I complained, “How did this happen?  How did I lose control over my time?  How can I prepare to write or speak when I feel drained, like I have nothing to offer?”

 

The walk helped as well as the venting.  I went back to my desk and put my nose to the grindstone.

A couple of days later I sat at my desk looking again at the manuscripts I’d prepared.  Still feeling dry and tired I picked up the Message Bible and began reading.  A verse addressing the dry season I was experiencing caught my attention.

This is what I read in Matthew 11:28, 29:

“Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion?  Come to

Me.  On vacation with me, you’ll recover your life.  I’ll show you

how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”

In that Scriptural passage I was struck with the phrase, “learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”  It caused me to ponder my life.  Was I experiencing arrhythmia?  Was I going at life at a different tempo—perhaps a furious one, a forced one, an impulse-driven one?

I reread the verse.  “Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it”  For a few minutes I took a walk with the Lord,

…down the dusty roads of Galilee

…through the synagogues

…to a wedding feast

…into a boat during a tempestuous storm

…through the streets of Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt

…into an upper room with a basin and towel

…down a dark pathway into a garden as He prayed intensely to His Father, and finally,

…to Mount Calvary.

 

The heartbeat of God pounded wherever He walked.  Service and grace marked every encounter.  He did life in what seemed like unplanned, spontaneous unforced rhythms of grace.  While doing mundane things like stopping at a well to get a drink, Christ infused grace to those He encountered.  His life exemplified a cadence of unforced rhythms of grace.  As I walked and watched how He did life I noticed something.  He simply did ordinary tasks at the moment and permeated them with grace.  It came naturally.  It was his mode of operation.

I don’t know about you, but my life doesn’t naturally flow in unforced rhythms of grace.  I let a lot of the ordinary mundane things pass without permeating them with anything and many times labeling them as distractions!  With a schedule in front of me I operate life trying to accomplish a daily checklist.  I fill every moment with activity and delight in my productivity.  But while accomplishing what I think is important I may be letting the more important work of the Kingdom pass me by.  With my overscheduling I’m crowding out ministry opportunities to do the mundane, ordinary things that really count in the upside-down world of the Kingdom—where first is last and last is first.

June Winebrenner, in her book, Intimate Faith, writes,

“If we are uncomfortable with towels and basins and the thought of serving

in lowly ways and in grubby places, where there is no applause and no television

cameras, we haven’t yet grasped the divine concept of servanthood.  We have

failed to comprehend that the Lord walks among the pots and pans.”

After walking with Jesus and watching how He did life I ask myself two tough questions. (1) Am I willing to be banished to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial if the Father asks it of me?  And, (2) Am I willing to adjust my pace to the Lord’s and learn to walk in unforced rhythms of grace?