“You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God.”
-Dallas Willard, quoted by John Ortberg in Soul Keeping
How do you arrange your days so that your soul remains centered on God?
arabah rejoice 
I keep coming back here to see if someone has left a comment yet 😀 I don’t know, because that isn’t very often my focus, I’m afraid. I keep chewing on that phrase “Arrange your days”……….
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We mothers have a unique challenge in that most of our waking hours must flex around the needs of our family. And yet, does our family come first, or does God come first? There’s not an easy answer to how all this gets fleshed out, but the quote made me try to think of ways that I could refocus on God during the day while still caring for my family. Sometimes I think my expectations of how I need to spend time with God are too high, so I don’t even try to do simple connecting throughout the day. Maybe if I would just take a moment while washing dishes or folding laundry to quiet my heart before God, I would find my days more joyfully serene.
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As a young mother, trying to “arrange my days” often turns into frustration (which keeps me from experiencing contentment, joy, and confidence) If I plan to spend time with God at 5:30am, one of my children will (predictably) need something then. Instead, I ask God to arrange my day so I will have a little time (somewhere) just with Him. And He does 🙂
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I love this!
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That’s so true…God doesn’t want time with Him to just be another worry in our day. I love how you ask Him to help you grow the relationship. I think God delights in this kind of camaraderie. 🙂
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For me, arranging my days means being purposeful about what needs to be done and writing it down. At the beginning of the week, I write down what needs to be done each day that week. It’s surprisingly little. For instance, my list yesterday was, “Laundry.” There are millions of other things that I could do, but since laundry is my focus for the day, it takes the pressure off (for me) and I am content to do this one task and feel successful when the day is over. Then, I find myself being much more free to spend an hour playing in the pool with the baby, or having quiet time while watching her fall asleep, or even have her “help” with laundry, which means wash some things twice, and fold everything twice. For me, enjoying her delight is worship, feeling the sun and seeing the sky is worship, quiet minutes in the nursery is worship. Arranging my days helps me a great deal in having a restful spirit, and not thinking that everything needs to get done on this exact day. This summer is being especially restful somehow. I think being a mom has really slowed down my pace of life and made more space for worship. I love the quote; it’s so profound.
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Thank you, Dorcas! Your description of worship is beautiful, and I think it’s exactly what God intends for us. I think having four children has sped me up, not slowed me down. 🙂 And yet, I know what you mean. When I worked full-time as a nurse, that meant getting out the door at 5:30 every morning (except for my precious days off) and cramming housework in around the edges of my job. My days now have so much more flexibility. The challenge, as always, is to do only as much as God asks of me, instead of trying to meet some self-imposed standard of what needs to be done. And to pause to notice His bountiful gifts, to open my heart to His constant outpouring of love, to listen to His voice speaking to me throughout my days. Thanks for sharing, and blessings on your dear family!
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