Is God resting?

In Lent (well I guess all the time) it can become easy for life to seem dreary and the work of God in our lives to seem more or less absent. Lent amplifies this because it is usually a dreary time of year as far as the weather (ignore this if you live somewhere that's always warm) and we are fasting/sacrificing which makes every day harder.

In this state of mind/being it is easy for us to fall into the oh-so-common thought that God sets things into motion and then just lets them happen. Even when we get caught by beauty in the world today we are tempted, usually subconsciously, to remark at how amazing it is to see the flowers begin to sprout as the weather becomes warm without noticing Him who makes them sprout.

During these days it often becomes difficult for us to get quite as excited that the sun rises and sets, that the moon is quite beautiful when we can see it clearly, or that the snow falling can look quite beautiful if we stop to look at it. Instead, if we were to think about it for a second, we would most likely simply conclude that the sun rises simply because that's what the sun does, and that the snow falls because of the weather patterns making it so.

Wherein Chesterton Disagrees 

G.K. Chesterton saw this attitude that said things are the same because they have to be and vehemently disagreed. Chesterton compared the sun rising and setting to the attitude of a small child; when you do something the child likes, you must do it again and again until you become tired. The adult, inevitably, is tired of the thing much before the child is, and so we as adults assume the same about God-He couldn't possibly make the sun rise every day, for that would be quite boring. 

But, Chesterton asserts, why can't we simply believe that God doesn't get bored? Why can't we believe that He is active in our lives consistently and totally without fail each every day. Listen to Chesterton: 

For grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them...The repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. --G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p.51

For many of us, things seem to happen around us just because they do. People see something happen and chalk it up to chance or fate and move on. Maybe it is time, however, as Chesterton suggests, to see it as not necessary, but as God working to show us beauty, to move us forward, to bring us to Him.

Lent

And so this returns us to where we are now-Lent; this time of sacrifice, penance, and giving of ourselves when we often find ourselves a little slower to love and quicker to judge.

Maybe this Lent it would help to stop and to appreciate the world around us. Even in its gloom, its darkness, its brokenness, its despair-see how beautiful everything is. See how beautiful everyone is. Appreciate the things and people around you, and realize, with Chesterton, that we're not just here by chance, but rather that God has placed us here. Realize that He wants you to be alive, and now He has you in Lent not because He wants you to be bored with the same routine, but because He wants you to come alive and see His constant love for you. 

This Lent, stop for a second or two and see how He is profoundly active in your life every day. Appreciate His presence, and let His work in your life draw you deeper into relationship with Him this Lent.