Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
—Jesus
Balance is overrated. I’ve completely given up on the concept. I now have a personal vendetta against the people who coined the phrase work-life balance. Whoever you people are, I feel like you made promises to me that you couldn’t keep! Balance isn’t just overrated, it’s unachievable. And, in my view, the self-care movement, which has grown in popularity and influence in the last few years, is also making promises it can’t keep. I know this is an unpopular opinion. So many people I know have been swept up in the self-care movement and found it to be valuable.
The truth is, those who actually choose to care for who they are as a person through self-care gain much from the movement. I will always advocate for people to pursue holistic well-being. However, my observation is that what many label self-care is really self-comfort or even worse, self-indulgence. For example, the Netflix binges that allow us to get lost in an interesting or humorous story feel good, at least at first. There is also nothing wrong with getting engaged in a great show on Netflix, but when you’re asked, “are you still watching?” after several hours, perhaps the answer should be “not anymore” and to turn it off.
It’s time to give up our quest for balance and embrace healthy rhythms. Rhythms in our lives can be found daily, weekly, or seasonally. At times, we work harder than normal, so perhaps the next season should be a time when we try to find more rest. Daily, what keeps you grounded and centered and helps you face the myriad of uncertainty that each day holds? This is where spiritual practices become so vital. They can be a part to your daily or weekly rhythms, giving you a place to start or end each day.
When I learned about spiritual practices or disciplines growing up, they were limited to just a few things: reading my Bible, a list of prayer requests, and potentially reading some sort of devotional book. These practices were grouped together in what my faith community called devos or quiet time. As an adult, I didn’t want to do these things every day because it felt really forced and rote. I was going through the motions in a way that seemed like an obligation more than a way to become centered.
This all changed as I began to try out some of the experiments and practices I offered in part 2 of this book. I’ve learned that there are so many ways that God can be experienced! I began to pray deep prayers, going beyond the obligatory list of thank yous and requests. I still had to be intentional, and it did feel like a discipline—maintaining a deep prayer life was even sometimes stressful, but in a good way like the stress we discussed in the last chapter. But just like growing my capacity for jogging by going just a little farther each day, I began to grow in my capacity to connect with God through these new rhythms. I also gained a deeper connection with my own soul, paying attention to what was going on inside of me in a way that I hadn’t before. In Hagberg and Guelich’s model, stage 4 seasons of faith are referred to as “the inward journey.” This stage emphasizes how important it is to be able to understand your own soul at a deeper level as you journey toward the core of who you are.
Trading the value concepts of balance and quiet times in for rhythms and practices made a huge difference in my life. These rhythms have kept me grounded throughout transition and change. Life doesn’t really have seasons of transition; it’s just one big transition. I think of transition metaphorically as a train that sometimes is moving slowly but other times is going full force down the side of a mountain. But the Transition Train rarely stops, if ever. Life keeps moving, and that means change and transition come with it!
By incorporating rhythms and practices into my life, I have come to the realization that the only consistent parts of my life are the rhythms I choose to participate in. Some days, they do feel just like going through the motions. But I have learned that they can be so helpful for me to stay grounded as life swirls around me. I don’t need to be feeling it every day to benefit from the practice. People sometimes say, “I will get into regular rhythms when life calms down. My schedule is so crazy right now.” My response is that they should connect with some rhythms and practices precisely because their life is so crazy right now.
Rhythms that leave space for listening and reflection create a regular space in my life to stay curious. Pausing to let my questions catch up to the fast pace of my life is always worth it. When I can name the question on the surface of my life, I can often go deeper and discover what I sometimes call “the question beneath the question.” But this ability to take the meaning beyond the surface takes time. It just so happens that time is already carved out when rhythms and practices are a part of my life regularly.
I have to be intentional about changing my practices in different seasons. Living in Minnesota, where we really do have four distinct seasons, the change in the weather is a helpful reminder to ask myself if my rhythms are working for me. I try to gauge what rhythms I need in the next season to help me stay connected with God, with my own soul, with the people in my community, and with the kingdom purposes God has led me to engage in. I now have what many call a Rule of Life: a list of my daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal rhythms. Each season, it needs to be revised depending on the demands of life. Big changes in my life, relationships, or vocation require a larger overhaul of my Rule of Life.
Even though you may need to change up your rhythms and your practices seasonally, it is important to give things a reasonable amount to time to see the effect they have on your mind and heart. So many people try a spiritual practice for a week or two and then decide that it didn’t do anything for them. Give it some time, people! Most things worth doing take time, and frankly we aren’t very good at them right away.
My friend Dan is a musician and songwriter, and he says that any good song should either move you or be something you can move to. I just love that way of thinking about spiritual practices as well. Every single time you practice lectio divina, the daily examen, or a resonate walk, you may not feel moved or a desire to move. But when you look back over a few weeks or a month, what do you notice? Do you see your heart being drawn to a deeper place with God, yourself, or others? Do the practices lead you to action? To move in a direction toward something in your own life or toward justice or mercy in the lives of others? When you’ve given it time and it feels like a practice isn’t something that moves you or that you can move to, it might be time to try something else.
The Gospel of Luke recounts a story about what happened after Jesus died and the disciples heard that he may have been resurrected and come back to life.[1] The disciples still doubted that this was true. They doubted, in part, because it was some of the women in their community who had come back from the empty tomb proclaiming the resurrection. At that time, they wouldn’t give any credibility to the report of a couple of women. Even today, the testimony of women is often considered unreliable by men who want to see the evidence with their own eyes. And, of course, we are all like this—suspicious until we see something for ourselves.
The story in Luke describes how two of the disciples are walking along the road to a town called Emmaus. They are talking with each other about all that has happened over the past few days. I’m sure it had been an emotional roller coaster. It’s no wonder they were doubting that Jesus was back. I think I would be too. Suddenly, Jesus begins to walk on the road beside them. The Scripture says they are “kept from recognizing him.” I always think about how strange it is that they don’t realize it’s him. How often are we walking with Jesus on the road of life without realizing it? Jesus asks the disciples what they are talking about and then lets them recount the whole story of what happened to him. All the while, they don’t realize that it’s him they are talking to! (Jesus has a sense of humor.)
Then Jesus starts to tell them his story, the story of God, right from the beginning and on through to his death, making connections to the story of their forefathers and prophets and explaining why the Messiah needed to die. Through all this, they still don’t recognize him. They get to Emmaus and invite Jesus to eat with them. Jesus grabs the bread and breaks it, just like he had done the last night before he died. And in that moment, they recognize him. Just as soon as they do—poof—Jesus disappears. The stories where Jesus disappears are some of my favorites. I imagine that Jesus sometimes did this just because he could, and for some reason that makes me love him more.
The disciples are left at the table bewildered, and they express something that has always intrigued me. They ask each other “were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” Their hearts were burning. But they must have tried to ignore it. Because they didn’t pay attention to their senses or share their inklings with each other, they missed the reality that they were having a divine encounter with the risen Jesus. How often in life do we miss encounters with Jesus or the Divine because we ignore the burning in our hearts? Or perhaps we have forgotten what it feels like to have our hearts burning within us (some might say we have become hard hearted). What if Jesus is walking the road right beside us, and we just aren’t able to truly see him? How can we pay more attention to what is happening in our hearts?
I think we all know what that feels like—a little spark or curiosity that leads us to ask the question that is beginning to catch flame within us. A sense that there is something meaningful happening right now if we were to just stop and notice. But instead of fanning the flame, we hold it back even to the point of letting it go out, allowing curiosity and wonder to disappear. It’s a mistake to think that we will only encounter God in spiritual practices. In fact, sometimes putting so much pressure on those quiet times leads to frustration. If we narrow our scope to seeing God only in those small moments of our lives, we can miss out on what Jesus may be pointing to out in the world.
We often live our lives on autopilot, going from place to place with our head down, not noticing all that’s happening around us. But God is moving all the time, trying to get our attention, even though we often fail to recognize God on the road. This story helps me see that perhaps my eyes would be open if I were to let myself engage with the burning in my heart. Let my curiosity ask, “Why do I feel this sense of wonder, anger, confusion, love, or any other emotion that rises in me when I stop to notice the spark I feel in my heart?”
When your heart is burning on the road, or when you open the Scriptures, or when you have a meaningful encounter or conversation with someone, perhaps it’s time to stop and wonder. Or if the situation doesn’t allow you to pause, take that spark into a practice you have carved out intentionally in your Rule of Life. Those spaces will fan the flame of your curiosity, allowing it to burn away some of what consumes your restless mind. And those spaces will prepare you for what may be next on your journey.
As soon as Jesus disappears, the disciples get up and leave Emmaus and go to Jerusalem where the others are gathered. Before they can get the whole story out, Jesus appears right there in the room with them. Even though they had just failed to recognize Jesus with them on the road, when he appears this time, they assume he is a ghost! Seriously, Jesus and his disappearing and reappearing act!
Jesus asks them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” They are still in awe and have a hard time believing what they are seeing, but Luke makes it clear that Jesus “opened their minds” to help them understand.
Jesus was the one who opened their eyes to see that it was him sitting at the table with them. It was Jesus who opened their ears so they would know it was his voice. And it was Jesus who opened their minds to be able to comprehend at least some of what was happening around them. One of the prayers that I often repeat when I engage in spiritual practices is this:
Jesus, open my eyes to see what you are doing around me, open my ears to hear your voice, open my mind to give me wisdom and discernment, and open my heart and give me courage to respond to the invitation to join you in your mission of redemption in the world.