This week Britain continued its national hobby of commentating about the weather.
Half the country says it’s far too hot.
The other half says it’s not as hot as 1976.
Personally, I was less concerned about settling the climate debate and more concerned about keeping Zeb entertained without melting him.
Before anyone starts, no, I wasn’t marching a collie around in 29-degree heat.
He’s got a garden.
He’s got shade.
He’s got a pond.
He’s got far more cooling options than most of us.
So we played ball in the garden. Not on the grass though. We are growing that back ever since he decided to kill the last lot.
Unfortunately, the ball landed in a bucket.
Now, this isn’t some mysterious new bucket.
This bucket has lived in the garden for ages.
Sometimes it’s empty.
Sometimes it catches rainwater from the drainpipe.
Sometimes I use the water for topping up the pond.
And despite the fact that I regularly try to stop Zeb drinking from it, he has decided that rainwater with muck from the bucket is apparently superior to fresh water from his bowl.
So putting his head in the bucket is usually not a problem.
He’ll practically climb inside it if he thinks there’s something interesting to drink.
But the moment his ball landed in there?
Different story.
Suddenly the bucket became an object of deep suspicion.
He stood staring at it.
Whining at it.
Looking at me.
Looking back at the bucket.
Looking at me again.
Pacing back and forth between me, Gareth and
the bucket…
As though we were somehow responsible for the existence of buckets.
What should have been ten minutes of throwing a ball turned into half an hour of convincing a perfectly intelligent collie that the bucket he regularly sticks his face into was not planning to harm him.
This is also the same dog who, earlier in the week, decided he was brave enough to bark and growl at another dog twice his size because apparently he had strong opinions.
Yet ten minutes later a leaf moved in a bush and he nearly launched himself into another postcode.
The confidence is selective (as well as the hearing)
Meanwhile, all I wanted this week was an extra hour of sleep – actually an extra week would be good.
I’d had about five hours because my body clock apparently enjoys making life difficult.
All day I was thinking, “When work is finished, I’m having an hour’s sleep.”
I regularly look at my husband sat asleep in a chair, or anywhere, I’m sure he could sleep standing, thinking
Ahhh look at him.
Lucky git.
Must be so nice to have that ability.
Jealous? Much?
The moment the opportunity arrived for me to sleep, everybody wanted something.
The doorbell wanted something.
Work wanted something.
The dog wanted something.
Amazon wanted me emotionally invested in a parcel that was allegedly one stop away.
My bladder wanted something.
Everybody had needs.
Gareth informed me the parcel was one stop away.
An hour later it was still one stop away.
At that point I concluded Amazon was operating on prophetic timing.
The thing that struck me this week is that I keep saying I want peace and quiet.
I want time to think.
I want time to pray.
I want time to sit with God.
Yet when I finally get five minutes with nobody wanting anything from me, I immediately find something else to do.
I’ll check my phone.
I’ll make a drink.
I’ll remember a job that suddenly feels urgent.
I’ll find something to be frustrated about.
It’s strange really.
People sometimes say, “You just like being busy.”
No, I really don’t.
I don’t wake up in the morning hoping for more stress.
I don’t dream of having more interruptions.
I don’t spend my afternoons thinking, “What I really need right now is another problem.”
Yet somehow I can spend all day wanting peace and quiet and then struggle to settle down when I finally get it.
As Christians, we know we’re saved by grace.
We know we don’t earn God’s love.
We know we don’t earn His attention.
Jesus has already made a way for us to come to the Father.
Yet sometimes I still act as though I need to get everything sorted before I can sit down with God.
I’ll just finish this.
I’ll just do that.
I’ll just sort out one more thing.
Then I’ll spend time with Him.
The problem is that there is always one more thing.
One more email.
One more job.
One more interruption.
One more bucket-related crisis involving a collie.
Scripture tells us that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy.
Sometimes I think one of the easiest things for him to steal is attention.
Not necessarily through dramatic sins or obvious rebellion.
Sometimes just through noise.
Through distraction.
Through the constant feeling that something else needs doing first.
We live in a microwave culture where everything is instant, and after a while you get so used to noise and interruptions that stillness starts to feel uncomfortable.
Which is probably why the verse says:
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Not because being still is easy.
But because for some of us it’s surprisingly difficult.
The good news is that God already knows this.
He isn’t sitting there waiting for me to become perfectly focused before He’ll talk to me.
He already knows I’m tired.
He already knows I’m distracted.
He already knows I’m the sort of person who can turn a ten-minute game of fetch into a half-hour lesson on bucket confidence.
And He still says, “Come.”
Apparently everyone wants my attention.
And when nobody wants my attention, I’m not always sure what to do with it.
