S05E026, Doing Nothing on Purpose, Andy B 2 Minute Video
Are you any good at resting?
I’m never going to be accused of being lazy. But I could, far more easily, be accused of not resting very well.
If I’m in bed I’m either asleep or pretty ill. Simply lazing about does not come naturally to me, so it can be hard for me to properly rest when I do get the opportunity.
While in Spain my wife and I were not coping with what many other British holiday makers were doing – sitting by the pool seemingly filling the time between breakfast and dinner, day after day.
We do not do well at not doing anything. But, doing nothing on purpose is something very different - there is a world of difference between the two, and we all need times when we can deliberately, and intentionally, do nothing.
I was sat in a coffee shop the other day watching the world go by. I felt guilty for doing it, and then got righteously challenged by a wise friend, who didn’t ask me why I wasn’t being busy, but pointed out that I shouldn’t be leaving it to just once every few years! We all need friends like that in our lives - thank you Mary.
Perhaps you’re a worship leader, and you struggle to worship, unless you’re stood at the front behind a keyboard and microphone…I’ve struggled with that one over the past 35 years as a worship leader. You need to take that one to God in prayer, and probably, rather urgently, need to step down for a while. Our relationship with God matters more than our ability to simply fill in for any single function in the church.
Oh yeah, the other thing about doing nothing on purpose, is that it gives God a chance of speak into our busy brains. Much like fasting from food, we also need to fast – on occasion – from the busyness, and the business, of life.
So schedule in some time when you disengage from the ebbs and flows of life, and take a little time. It isn’t self-indulgence, but a necessity to have some to ourselves. Don’t cut yourself off from other people in your life, but some time with your phone switched off is rarely wasted.
Just a thought...
Andy B
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Transcript
[00:00:00] So another Andy B 2 Minute Video, and I've told this one, Doing Nothing On Purpose. It's really easy to, to not do something. It's really easy to, to push something off to another day. It's easy to take a rest at some extent. But doing nothing on purpose is really important for our mental health, for our physical health. It's good for our spiritual health, our wellbeing. It can be really hard to do nothing on purpose.
[00:00:35] Now, many years ago, my wife and I were treated to a holiday in Spain. My grandmother had died. My grandfather still wanted to go, so we said, we'll come with you. And he said great , but I'll pay for you. So he had a free holiday for two weeks. It was great!
[00:00:49] But their holidays consisted of getting on a plane, getting on a coast to the hotel, and basically never ever leaving a hotel. They might go for a little walk along the promenade, but, but that [00:01:00] was it. That's all they wanted to do. They were very happy with that very content. And that was it. He even used to walk down and buy his local paper, which they, they printed for all the the local English folks.
[00:01:11] But Jo and I, after two days sitting by the beach, were going absolutely nuts at just sitting, doing nothing. We couldn't cope with it, just sitting in the heat. Like what? We've come to Spain to listen to English people reading English newspapers around a swimming pool. I could do this in the uk, not quite as warm.
[00:01:30] So we hired a car in off into the mountains and we explored some amazing locations my grandad had never seen. We went to Gibraltar where he'd been stationed during the war for a really short time. We explored some of the history, we, we discovered what was going on around us. But we found that doing nothing on purpose is really hard in that context 'cos we wanted to explore.
[00:01:52] But in our lives that can be very, very busy with this kind of instant, same day mentality of deliveries, and getting things done, and targets and [00:02:00] discipline. And we've got deadlines and all of that stuff. We still need to rest. It's good to work hard. No one's ever gonna accuse me of being lazy.
[00:02:08] But in the last couple of weeks, I've had some of the work I've been doing regularly has been on hold, for all sorts of reasons, nothing to do with me. So I've taken two weeks actually to slow down and do nothing on purpose.
[00:02:20] I've sat down and watched some cheesy Australian soap, which I would never normally watch. It's been great to just switch my brain off and do something completely different. And I've written some guest blog posts for other bloggers.
[00:02:31] Sometimes doing nothing on purpose can be frustrating, if you wanna explore. But sometimes doing nothing on purpose is what you need to do, so that God can speak into your heart, and you can get some really, really good rest.
[00:02:42] Just a thought.