Five-minute friday: Ordinary

 

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It's 5:53 am, and I'm rushing to leave early this morning so I can write before work.  I gather my things, stuff my backpack and sit down on the floor to slip on my shoes, thinking of how I still want to sit down under a cozy blanket, as I do for a few minutes each morning, to read the word of God.  I begin to tie the laces, and my hands stop mid air, arrested by this thought, this crazy thought: Leave your shoes off.  That's right, take them off.

It's not even a Moses-and-the-burning-bush-holy-moment that draws me here, sock footed.  Only the realization pressing with quiet intensity.  God is not a fast food God.  He is not for my quick spiritual consumption, to rush in with shoes laced and ready to run away as soon as my five minutes are up.  And even if I only have five minutes, he is a God whose presence is to savor, not to gulp down, eager to get to the Next Thing.  

My heart sinks.  There is nothing ordinary about this God, and yet, that is exactly how I approach him.  If I don't even have time to take my shoes off, if I can't even give him that regard, I might as well walk out my front door and begin the day right now.

So I take off my shoes and I walk to our sofa, the one I meet with him on in the morning; the one where I wait to clear the early morning fog, wait to hear his words, to drink in his love.  I curl up under the blanket and pull out the book.  And he speaks, filling me up with grace for the day.

     My soul, wait silently for God alone,
     For my expectation is from Him.
     ⁶ He only is my rock and my salvation;
     He is my defense;
     I shall not be moved.
    ⁷ In God is my salvation and my glory;
     The rock of my strength,
     And my refuge, is in God.

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Joining up with Lisa-Jo and the community at Five-Minute Friday, to the prompt of "Ordinary."