“How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?  How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?  And how will they hear without a preacher”  (Romans 10:14

 Hey Gang, TGIF!  Do you sometimes feel that way?  I certainly had many Fridays when I felt that way but, in my working days I was involved in three occupations,   I was an air traffic controller, worked as a counselor in a detention home and was developer and president of a child care program. 

Note, none of these jobs were five-day  weeks, nine to five with weekends off and holidays.  Did it bother me?  Yes, to a degree, it would have been nice to punch the clock at five o’clock and put the work place out of my mind until Monday morning when I punched in again, but there was also the joy of knowing that one of my fellow employees was home enjoying his family today, and I would be able to do the same tomorrow. 

I found this neat little ditty in Chuck Swindoll’s book Ultimate Book of Illustrations that makes a great deal of sense.  I wish I would have had it when I was up to my armpits in alligators.  It goes like this:

“Slow me down, Lord, ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.  Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.  Give me, amid the confusion of the day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.  Break the tension of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory.  Teach me the art of taking minute vacations – of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to smile at a child, to read a few lines from a good book.  Slow me down, Lord. And inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life’s ending values, that I may grow toward my greater destiny.  Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed.  Let me look upward to the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.”

Is that not a great piece of advice especially to those who are wired with the insatiable feeling that we must be doing something constructive?  My warning to  those who have completed their working tenure and are preparing for the life of leisure is, “Careful, chose your projects well or you might find your calendar looking like someone walked on it". 

Does that mean I am telling them to get out the old rocking chair and, as Dwight Eisenhower said he would do, sit quietly for seven years and then begin to slowly start rocking”.  No, that is not what I am saying, but rather when you no longer have the discipline of the work day in your life, you can let your life get out of control.  

Soooo, my young buckaroos, when it seems the alligators are rising and the sun is having a hard time peeking through the dark clouds, take a moment or two and smell the posies.  Then call someone twho is worse off then you and tell them you really, really, really care about them.

Blessings,

 Gramps