Today’s post is by Chris Logan, Pastor of Worship Arts at Community Covenant Church in Lenexa, KS.
Once upon a time there was a man who sold hats, which he carried upon his head. One day he had a particularly bad sales day and had no money for lunch (apparently he lived hand to mouth), so he took a walk in the countryside. Upon waking from his nap, he discovered that monkeys had absconded into their tree with his hats.
It’s at this point in this classic story that my envy starts to set in.
I too wear a lot of hats, as we all do. I’m a father, a husband, a musician, a techie, a writer, a photographer … there are so many hats, and when it comes time to rest, to sabbath, I often wish that a bunch of monkeys would simply take the hats from my head for me; they do not come easily from my head. It’s not that I cling to them, exactly, but more like they cling to me.
And so it was with genuine surprise, a few weeks ago, that I found myself on a trip (it’s not a “vacation” until our kids can mostly take care of themselves) to see family and discovered that many of the hats had mysteriously left themselves behind. For two weeks, I barely thought about all the tasks on my list – I never tried to hide planning a worship set from my wife, never tried to snatch a few minutes with my task list to throw a few more things on there, and when I practiced my guitar, I just … played. I enjoyed my kids (still just a trip though), enjoyed my wife and parents and extended family, I enjoyed some boating and swimming and reading some good sci-fi (I will not apologize for this), and I let all the caps stay at home.
Sabbath, when taken, is a beautiful thing. And this is my prayer for you all this summer, that you would find rest, refreshment, rejuvenation.
But what happens when we get home and all the caps go back on, as if nothing ever happened (hypothetically speaking, of course)? What happens when we come back and we still feel empty? Do we stop singing, stop participating? Do we bury ourselves in mediocrity and stop listening and simply hope that it’ll be better tomorrow?
Trust me; that never works.
I’ve been there. In fact, I’m there all the time. No, instead, we can – we must – choose to engage. It’s not just going through the motions, it’s acting our way to a new way of thinking. We uncross our arms and open our voices and our ears and trust that when we show up, God will too. And the beautiful thing is that when He always does, we realize that He was there the whole time, pleading that we open our ears and our eyes and our voices and our minds; we find that even in our failures or our doubts, He is strong.
And that the caps were all His anyway.
