Can you sense it? Is the pendulum going crazy for you too? The clock ticks fast as a year’s tail end is swallowed up in a season of busyness that feels beyond our control.

For some of us, this adrenaline rush signals excited anticipation, stirs up remembrance, urges us to try to improve on past Yuledtides, as if our efforts are all that matters.

Although time itself cannot be stopped, we can learn to live more mindfully, making the moments count, while we keep our eyes on the bigger picture.

My heart is trying to resist haste, refuse to yield to mounting anxiety about all that needs to be done to prepare for Christmas. I don’t want to miss the most important thing in the midst of the mayhem. My soul wants to be swayed more by Holy Spirit than a sense of time deficit.

Inner pendulum

I know I have the same 24 hours as everyone else
but most of mine pass in a haze of fatigue, become
lost in a swirling mist of brain-fogged forgetfulness
sadly gone before I know it.

So how do I claw back time, make the moments count
rather than seep away like grains of sand, washed-up
sludge in a surging tide? How do we live well, mindfully
in a world focused on high speed?

Maybe the secret is not to squash yet more into our lives
like stuffing a sausage that cracks and splits – maybe we
can learn instead to go with the natural rhythm and flow
of our own inner pendulum.

Our bodies might tick like restless clocks but our souls
have their own God-ordained dance that includes much
slowing down, pausing, praying, meditating – connecting
us to the living Heart of all things.
©joylenton

Will you join me in pausing to reflect during this Thanksgiving week? Let’s take a soul stop for our sanity’s sake, try to resist the lure of online malls and the high street’s insistent “buy me!” calls. Because the living Heart of all things is waiting. He chases after our hearts alone.

God isn’t in a hurry. He’s not rushed or harassed. His pendulum swings restfully with rhythms of grace. God simply longs for us to turn to Him, become rested and refuelled, sense Holy Love’s desire to flood our hearts with Hope instead of haste.

Heavenly Father,

We’re in danger of missing the point of it all in the desire to prettify our homes and buy an excess of stuff. Would you help us to slow? Show us how to live with our souls tuned to Holy Spirit’s restful inner pendulum.

May we reflect on the abundance we already have in Christ. May the very act of pausing cause our souls to swell with gratitude, instead of chasing after more. Teach us to be content. Help us to be aware when our focus gets skewed away from You.

As we spend time preparing for Christmas, would You prepare our hearts most of all? Reveal where we might be filling an inner need with things we really do not need. Help us to recognise the holes in our hearts and draw us deeper into Your eternal love.

Amen