It's ok to linger

Sometimes we just need to linger.

Slow down. Pause. stop. Cease. Wait. Ponder.

It's okay....it's allowed.

I know we live in a culture that seems to demand busyness...that hurries and harries. But you know what, it doesn't have to be that way.

I was struck by Mary in John 20:10-11. Read it so you can picture the scene and understand the context (You might want to go back to v1).

Mary lingered. She made space. She took time. The others...they returned home and to whatever was wiaitng for them there. But Mary stayed. She paused. She cried...she responded to the moment...gave her heart room. Right there, right then, Mary just need to linger.

We've been thinking about sabbath lately. The practice of regular time, where we rest in God, where we cease from toil and enjoy what gives life. Where we learn to receive from Him. But what I'm talking about now is not a weekly thing.....I'm talking about time whenever and wherever you need it...to slow, to breathe...to make space.

I don't know about you, but I find it all too easy to sit down of an evening and pick up my ipad; or come into the kitchen in the morning and put music on; or go to the gym and work out on a machine in front of the TV screen. Not that there's anything wrong with doing any of those things...but I've been finding that these just add to my sense of hurry. It's not just my body that is always on the go, but my mind too.

Have you ever just tried lingering in your emotions? Not hurrying through them, but lingering in them. Listening to them? Talking to God in them? Or lingering in your thoughts? I put down a book the other day....I had just finished reading it....but as soon as I shut the book I picked up the TV remote. It hit me that I needed to give myself space to process what I had read. I needed to allow my thoughts to simmer and permeate. It wasn't good for me that I rushed on to something else. My inner voice was urging me to continue busying my mind...and I needed to fight that.

We cannot be scared of time. Or space. Or quiet. Or waiting. Or slowing. 

We don't always have to have something to show for how we've used our time.

It is okay to linger. 

And you might just find, that it's in your lingering that you will hear from God.