My Morning Idle

The mornings are getting cooler. 

Not quite cold, but definitely much cooler.

So, in preparation to take my oldest, a senior this year,  to high school early to catch the bus for his off-campus classes, I decided to start the car a few minutes early.  Our seven year old minivan is a workhorse, but she seems to run more smoothly with a gentle easing into our crazy days.

Five minutes before we were scheduled to leave, I turned the car on and went back inside to finish up some things and hustle him out the door while the other children proceeded to get ready for their regularly scheduled day.

I walked in to a last minute change of plans.  

His girlfriend was going to pick him up along with his brother, the freshman, as well.

I was off the hook.

They left.

And I proceeded to help get the girls ready.  Oatmeal and tea consumed.  Email read.  Hair braided or straightened.  A cup of coffee for me, please, with the Today Show on in the background. Backpacks and lunches double checked.  Pinterest scanned.  Shoes on.  Grab my key….my key….where is my….oh no I didn’t…

You know where it is, don’t you? 

Wait for it….

Wait for it…

My key was STILL in the van and the van was STILL running!

Yup, mother of five kids, 42 years of age and I failed to remember that I started the car and left it running in the middle of our driveway for over an hour.

After a huge moment of relief to see the car actually still in the driveway, the rest of the kids were loaded for my next scheduled drop-off.  As I pulled out of the driveway, the low fuel light came on (uh, yeah, it was only running for the last hour) and I began to process my swirling emotions.  Grateful that I still had the car and that it had not run out of gas in the midst of my brain fart.  Guilty that I needlessly spewed fumes into the atmosphere for over an hour.  Embarrassed that my life is so chaotic that I failed to remember that I turned my car on in the first place.

Upon returning  home, I decided to take a few minutes to regroup thoughts with an online devotional which of course led to a link…..where I clicked on another link…and eventually ended up reading a preview chapter of Steven Furtick’s book Greater.    

The morning’s mishap still had its grasp wrapped tightly around my heart as I read this line:

“The thing is, most believers aren’t in imminent danger of ruining their lives.  They’re facing a danger that is far greater: wasting them.”

YIKES!

You see…I turned the proverbial key to start this blog well over a year ago.  I planned the route, declared it God’s calling for me, gunned the engine a few times and then left it idling in my proverbial blog driveway.      

And then my hugely overwhelming, sit down now and write this out, light bulb moment struck: You can let the car idle all by its lonesome or even sit in it with the pedal to the metal, but if it isn’t in the RIGHT GEAR,  you aren’t going anywhere.

Mine is not the idleness of not doing, it is the idleness of not being.  

Not being obedient.

Not being willing.

Not being discontent with mindless mediocrity.

It is not the idleness of sitting on my couch eating bon-bons (although that happens sometimes too), but rather the idleness of being very busy in the house with trivial pursuits while the car, the vehicle poised and ready to take me great places, sits running in the driveway.

Most people think of “idle” as being synonymous with lazy or inactive.  The primary definition in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary is “lacking worth or basis”.  How much of my time is spent idling…pursuing, obsessing over, accumulating, micromanaging, buying things without worth or basis in the eternal scheme of things while ignoring the godly?

This is not a reminder to do more in my life, but a rally cry to make more of my life.   

This is me…changing gears again. 

Want a ride?