Wasting Away On A Sunny Day...

Sometimes I feel as if when I'm not doing something, I am being lazy, not earning my keep. For some reason, there is this paradigm in my life that dictates to me that responsibility is a burden meant to be heavy and, well, burdensome. There's a kingdom-principle that I think God is letting me learn (that I most certainly do not yet have down) that it is okay to rest. Why is it that I feel the need to be incessantly stressed? Why does relaxing feel like laziness instead of a way of life? I do not want to be a stretched, uptight person. That is not really who I am when it comes down to it but for some reason, the further I get away from God, the more I live like so.

It is being revealed to me how the drive to earn my place is an issue of a slave-mentality. The Israelites had to learn in the desert what their position with God was. In the wilderness, the in-between land, the place of preparation, the chosen and anointed had to learn what their calling meant. Redding is a desert of sorts for me. Mind you, it is far more green than most and I am not truly alone out here. I have all the conveniences of running water (Holy Spirit) and manna (revelation) but the desert is in the difficulties, the dry places, the intense battle of faith and fear.

A dear friend from home and I were talking the other day about how reality truly is not an easy place to live out all that God is doing. Too much is going on and it's far more dead-man-natural to be wound tight and live out of an insatiable need to get ahead. As I began to tell him what Holy Spirit revealed to me about his life, I realized it applied for my own as well. God has many people in my life (especially those close to me) in various areas of struggle and growth. A majority of us feel like we are in the in-between land, as if something will change but it has definitely not happened yet. What was so revelatory to me is how essential genuine rest is to daily life. The Sabbath is not a joke; it is a life-principle. It is not a legalistic, another-rule-for-the-book either. Busyness is not forbidden and laziness is. But I have never known genuine trust to come out of a place of works or stress either. Trust is in the letting go, the sigh of release, the I've-done-my-part-and-I-know-God-will-do-His.

As trite as it may seem, this song keeps coming up in my life and even though the whole idea in it is not one I'd express for myself, I enjoy the way it works as a soundtrack to me releasing my worries and joys to the Creative One.

Yeah, I've been out of work;
It's been a long time and I'm down to my last dime,
Sitting on the beach with the sand in my feet.
I'm soaking up the sunshine.
Maybe I should care, but I don't.
I don't know what to tell ya.
Yeah, I'm wasted down here in California.

I woke up this morning: it's way past 10
Another day, here we go again:
Thinking about all the things that I got to do;
Its a whole lot of nothing.
I should get a job, but I won't.
I wouldn't want to spoil this,
Hanging out every day
and I'm loving every minute of it.

I live in California--wasting away on a sunny day.
I live down in California--I don't mind just feeling fine.

Wearing the same old torn up t-shirt
and its giving me a sunburn.
I got no where to go and I got nothing to show.
Yeah, but it could be worse.
Maybe I should care, but I don't;
I don't know what to tell ya.
I'm wasting down here in California.