I can’t tell if I’m running my life, or if it’s running me.
It happens every year. As summer approaches I dream of lazy pool days, restful rhythms, playful adventures, and maybe even some spiritual renewal thrown in for good measure. My intentions are admirable, even if they are hopelessly unrealistic. Still, it’s a humbling experience every year to limp toward the end of July, feeling like I have just barely survived a marathon. This summer it was an especially thrilling marathon – with conferences and camps and getaways and new work projects and parties and church events – but it was a marathon nonetheless, with no stops, no breathers, no stretch breaks.
In the absence of my “normal” school year routines, I embraced anything and everything that is good and right and holy. And as a result, my soul feels anything but good and right and holy. I am haggard, hobbling toward a new school year, where the incessant demands of my “normal” rhythms await. It makes me want to disappear to the Caribbean for year and hide from my calendar on a beach, somehow also leaving behind my own ever-planning, ever-dreaming mind.
Like I said, I can’t tell if I’m running my life, or if it’s running me. I need a reset. If I am going to survive the months ahead – better yet, if I am going to thrive in whatever the coming months hold – I need to power down for a moment, gather my wits, collect my thoughts, and tend to my soul.
Maybe you feel the same way.
Maybe we need more than a one-time reset, maybe we need a reset for the long-haul, a reset for the fundamental way we approach life.
Several weeks ago I had this idea to make August my “reset”month. To intentionally slow down. To pray more. To remember what my priorities are, to invest in what is lasting and life-giving and lovely. To re-focus, re-examine, and re-invigorate my soul. As the “August Reset” idea took hold of my imagination, so did an unmistakable sense of calling to write. To reflect upon and share my attempt to stop letting my life run me ragged. I’ve been unusually reticent to say yes to this calling. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a plan or an outline of how this will go. I only have my willingness and the companionship of the One who compels me to try. So here I am, and here we are.
I plan to write most days in August about how I’m learning to stop and rest and seek more sustainable rhythms for a deeper, healthier spirituality. I invite you to try a reset with me. I’m hoping that together we can recover from our marathons, and in the process reconsider how we approach our calendars, our productivity, and even our sense of self-worth.
Above all else, I hope that I’ll have the courage to stop letting my life run me. I’d like to give that honor back to God, the One whose ways lead to an abundant, satisfying life.
Still a Beautiful World 