For the past several months, I have been reading (and rereading) a very short book called Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture by David Murray. This book shows how to apply the spiritual habits God has provided for us in the Bible. The author may sound familiar because many of the men of CPC have been reading David Murray’s book, The Happy Christian: Ten Ways to be a Joyful Believer in a Gloomy World. Two of my favorite theologians, Derek Thomas and Michael Reeves, are responsible for my interest in David Murray.

It was during the spring of last year when Karen and I began visiting with the CPC Search Committee and making trips to Chattanooga. It seems like ages ago that we mobilized as a family to prepare our house for sale while working and spending time with as many friends as possible. We packed our belongings into the back of a moving trailer in June, and July was spent mostly apart, as I made our family’s Chattanooga preparations. In the emotional flurry of it all, I hardly remember what happened (Did we celebrate the kids’ birthdays, at all?). Our final three months in Alaska were a blur. Likewise, our first three months in Chattanooga kept the flurry going with a new job, new city, new school, new church, and new friends.

Those six months had an impact on our spiritual habits as a family. Frantic busyness does that, which we all know. Even amidst the hectic demands of the day, we still try to stay in-tune with our spiritual care through reading the Bible, prayer, meditation, rest, solitude, fellowship, and worship. We try.

British author, Saki (aka H. H. Munro), tells the story of Reginald, an urbanite invited to a grand estate to participate in a hunt. After the hunt, Reginald noted that “there’s such a deadly sameness about partridges; when you’ve missed one, you’ve missed the lot.” Yet, to prove his hunting skills, Reginald awoke early the next morning (he could tell it was early because “the grass looked as if it had been left out all night”) to do some hunting on his own, bagging a large bird and instructing the gardener-boy to bring it into the hall for everyone to see before breakfast. Their reply was that it was a “tame bird,” which he knew was “simply silly, because it was awfully wild at the first few shots.” After an uncomfortable breakfast, which Reginald felt was “tinged with a very unchristian spirit,” he reflected, “I suppose it’s unlucky to bring peacock’s feathers into a house anyway, there was a blue-pencilly look in my hostess’s eye when I took my departure.”

Nourishing ourselves through the means of grace in the Bible is not easy. When life is incessantly busy, it becomes even harder. For the Joneses, we are just beginning to settle into a less-frantic routine. However, the fast-paced demands of life never rest, do they? As Christians, our Father calls us to be a people who rest, reflect, pray, fellowship, read, and a myriad of other things that we seem to willingly neglect. We’re too busy. We only have just enough time to walk into the driveway, shoot the peacock, and return for breakfast. There’s simply not enough time for anything else!

David Murray’s book, Reset, reminds me this realization is an excellent starting point. Jesus said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” This completely set Paul’s heart at ease, and he was free to “boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,” knowing that it was not his own power that enabled him to rest, but “the power of Christ” taking up residence with him (2 Cor. 12.9). For the Christian, the ability to pause amidst busyness is, itself, an act of dependence upon God. We need God’s grace to “grow” as a Christian (2 Peter 3.18), and we need God’s grace to stop what we’re doing. Even before the growing, we need God’s grace to help us simply…stop. Pray for growth, indeed, but don’t forget to also pray for the ability to stop. Yes, we are that weak!