There is a way back, even for a tired old pastor.

It's relatively late on a Saturday night for me to be at the office, that is true. But when I don't have a sense of peace about Sunday, where else can I go? I process internally the struggle I feel, the gap in my spirit, trying to find it's source...

I caught a bit of a chill today clearing snow on the yard for a few hours. Trying to get the doors at least accessible for tomorrow. So I am cold, even in the warmth of the office.

I've been working hard to catch up from our sabbatical, trying to get many details dealt with. I know I have been giving maybe too much attention to those things. I guess they wear me out and I end up falling asleep in the strangest places, and at random times. :)

I think that when I get busy and take my eyes off the Focus of my life, I end up working to give my life meaning. I want to have a good reputation at my work, so I work really hard at it. I want to be respected, so I work hard to clear tons of snow. I want to help people because it's a good thing, so I book maybe too many appointments. Those sorts of things are only me trying to create meaning and value out of my existence. And of course we know that that path leads to a life created just by me. It rings kind of hollow sometimes.

In a search for comfort or some kind of help, tonight I find myself in the book of Acts, in the Bible:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.  ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’

Hmm,

...so that we would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

Not far.
Not far, yet I try it on my own, creating a meaningful existence I mean.

Yet in him we live and move and have our being.
Have our value, find our meaning, have our hope and our tomorrow.
In Him.

Trying to do it without Him leaves me a sort of hollow fellow. I guess that's another word for empty.
That explains the drafty bit around my spirit this night.

There is comfort there, in the promise that he is not far from any one of us.
There is a way back, even for a tired old pastor.

Night from the field.