To Feel, and Not Think

I can't turn off my brain. It fires constantly at high speed, when I'm awake and when I'm asleep. I use logic and reason for everything, it seems. I like to say I'm pragmatic, when I take lofty ideas and dreams that people have, and drag them back down to earth where they belong. This is mostly how I've always been.

Sure, I've sat behind a drum kit, and felt something that almost wasn't even me, that compelled me to ride the feeling like a wave. Afterward, my head light and tingling, I wondered where that came from. But it didn't last long.

For the last few years, I've gradually lost interest in art and music, or at least lost appreciation for them. There are still a few faint echoes of distant remembrance; but mainly cold indifference.

I've wondered if there's some reason for this dearth of creativity; if perhaps it's leading to some wonderful new place or revelation, or something even better than it ever was before. But maybe there's not. Maybe there's something wrong with me, or I'm really missing out on something. Or maybe this is a normal stage of life. I'm not sure.

I'm not really asking for an answer to this. I'm not even sure there's a question anywhere here. I'm just making a few honest observations.

But lately, I don't know. For somebody who thinks too much and feels too little, I sure have been spending a lot of time not thinking at all. I can't seem to find the energy to wrap my mind around deep thoughts or ideas which formerly enticed me so much. I'm craving simplicity, and I seem to be finding it.

I wake up in the morning thinking "Okay, Lord, the day is yours. What do you have in mind?" And if there's no answer, then I proceed like normal, expecting the answer to appear sooner or later. I'm mostly just resting in the goodness that I'm experiencing right now. I have been engaged in healthy self-doubt, in the sense that I question the value of my own attempts to make good things happen. If I'm going to give away something worthwhile to somebody, it needs to be empowered by God, not full of my own attempts to manufacture what seems good.

If the full extent of the Lord's plan for my day is to be in the right place at the right time to say five words to somebody I see in the supermarket, and then to simply rest in Him for the remainder of the day, I'm alright with that. If I'm being obedient, I have no way of knowing what that person had been dealing with, how God may have used those five words to change somebody's entire direction for the day and maybe longer, and to lead them closer to Him. I know this might sound like a stilted sense of self-importance on my part, but I really don't think it is, if I'm trusting Him to make things happen that need to happen. I believe in Divine appointments and the leading of the Spirit. I've lost confidence in just launching out on my own, doing the best I can, if it doesn't involve trusting God first.

I'm not sure where this walk is headed, but I trust that God is in control and I'm expecting Him to do what needs to be done.

Surfacing

Wow. So uh, here we go again. That thing bloggers do that I sorta don't like. I don't like it when others do it, and I particularly don't like it when I do it -- which is way too often.

You know what I'm talking about. The "Hey people I haven't blogged in a while, I've been busy with life and yadda-yadda" post.

So you know the drill. I'm still alive. Still reading my feeds. Not commenting on other blogs much these days. The sun is out a lot more. Life is good. Yadda-yadda.