Being There

             Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. (Colossians 3:17)

Many years ago, they did an experiment involving workers functioning under differing levels of light. What they found instead is that people tend to work harder when they think they’re being observed, regardless of the reason for the observation. It’s called the Hawthorne Effect.

If we really believed that God really watches over us, I suspect we might work harder at being better people. And I suspect it’s not that we think He doesn’t watch over us. The problem is that we don’t think about God, period. We may claim to love God, but we get so wrapped up in what we’re doing that we just go from one thing to another, drifting with a godless current because we’re too focused, or too busy, or too lazy to realize that it’s godless.

In effect, we spend too much time as zombies, wandering through life in an unconscious but insatiable search for the consciousness we associate with brains. Putting aside the spiritual aspects for a moment, how much more could we get done if we focused on what we were doing instead of puttering? This is part of the reasoning behind my cleaning rooms in five-minute races. I may be able to focus on things for five minutes. It’s such a short time that I have to focus. I have to get the stuff done that bugs me most that day. If I give myself more than five minutes, I’ll debate about what to do, I’ll get distracted.

 How much of your day could you spend in prayer and praise if you could think to pray while you’re washing your hands, making meals, or doing other basically mindless chores. When I wake in the morning, I try to pray through the Lord’s Prayer. If the alarm hasn’t gone off, I might fall asleep again partway through. There are mornings that it seems to require that I pray through it, or parts of it, many times before I think I’ve actually prayed each part, and not just thought or said the words. I change it slightly, and the change is where I focus. Instead of “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” I say “in me” or “in my life” I could say “in my world.” The point is that it brings the matter right here instead of out there somewhere.

Yesterday, I started building another good habit that combines self-care and prayer. The time that I spend washing my hands before handling food is a time to thank God for the food, for those who have grown it, processed it, shipped it, and sold it.

Since it’s the end of November, I’m thinking in terms of goals for 2022. Yes, already. I have been reading about thankfulness this past month. For December, I trying to decide whether to focus on creativity (which was one of my plans for this winter as a whole) or on consciousness – on being fully where I am and doing fully what I’m doing. I’ll probably let the library decide. Neither is a topic I expect to find much about. But they and gratitude are all interconnected. They all deal with the connection between the soul and God – so I think I’m going to declare war on the zombies in 2022. I want to be dead to the world, but alive to Christ…dead to sin, but alive to righteousness…dead to hatred, but alive to love…dead to death, but alive to the glory and grace of God.