adventures in Lent: the one about rhythms

Remember how I said that I was going to soldier on, and keeping fighting myself into wiser patterns of thought and behavior?  You would think that at this point in my life, I would know better than to make statements like that…

Last week was rather an epic Lenten fail.  I did not succeed in establishing anything even close to a pattern, much less a healthy one.  At one point I started feeling down about experiencing such failure, but then I realized: I needed to look at why this hasn’t been working.

There was the night I had a venti soy chai at dinnertime – after weeks of not having a lot of caffeine.  I was pretty wired and couldn’t fall asleep that night.  There was the night I had dinner with friends and didn’t get home until really late.  There was another night when I stayed up until almost midnight working on a job application (to no avail, but I couldn’t have known that at the time).  And then there was the night I went to a concert with a friend, an experience which was worth not getting enough sleep.

There were explanations.  And could I have made different choices about my time?  Sure.  I could have.

But there were reasons I didn’t.

1) When I first started this adventure in Lent, I began by acknowledging something true.  I said, “I’ve always needed a fair bit of time to wind down in the evenings before I can fall asleep, and in seasons of high stress, I tend to stay up really late, because winding down takes longer.”  So I decided that I would change that, by simply deciding not to let it be true.

The problem is, sheer willpower hasn’t worked.  It’s still true that this is the way I am wired, and that this is how I function in seasons of high stress: I stay up late.  And no matter how much I’ve wanted to change that, I haven’t been able to.  For example, the day I had that chai at dinner time was the same day I’d had a major emotional meltdown about being unemployed.  Once those emotions had been released, my subconscious needed some time to process them – and for whatever reason, this night owl’s subconscious processes better at night.  And I’ve had a lot to process lately.

2) I’m also ridiculously routine-oriented.  My best days last week were days when I had things to do that required me to be somewhere at a certain time: meeting someone for dinner at 6:00pm on Monday; going to church at 5:30pm on Saturday.  Having something to do at a set time gave me a framework around which to build the rest of my day.

photo courtesy of ©GraphicStock.com

I suppose you could argue that I could set myself a schedule –  for example: job hunting from 8:00am-4:00pm,  and I do try to set myself some sort of goal for each day – but the truth of the matter is, when I’m the only one affected by a deviation in my schedule, it is so much easier to let things slide, to stay up a little later to finish a book and sleep in a little later the next day, or to shut down my job search a little earlier than I’d planned because I’m tired and discouraged.

I really miss having a rhythm to my days.  Psalm 3:5 says, “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.”  It is a pattern, in and of itself – but it exists because of something: “because the Lord sustains me.”

And I am coming to realize that I have spent far more time lately attempting to establish my own rhythms than I have in trusting God to sustain me – not just in my sleep patterns, but in all facets of my life.

Someday on the far side of all of this, when I have had time to process and to heal, I will try to write about what these past four months have really been like.  But for now, I think it suffices to say: There is a story in Mark 9 about a man who brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus, to see if He can do anything.

” ‘IF You can?’ “ Jesus challenges him.  “All things are possible to him who believes.”

I have always identified with the man’s response, but I think now more than ever. “I do believe; help my unbelief!”

I do believe that God is able to sustain me, to provide for me, to have my best in mind.  I have had a more difficult time lately in believing that He will.  To which all I can say is, “Jesus, please help my unbelief.  Give me faith to believe what You say, even when I cannot see how You will come through.  Na’aseh v’nishma – I will do what I know to do and I will come to understand.  Amen.”

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This post is part of a series called Adventures In Lent, that I’ve been co-hosting with my friend, Arman Sheffey.  We’d love to hear about your Lenten experiences!  If you’re a blogger and are writing about it, feel free to add your post to Arman’s link-up here or leave us a link in the comments below.  You can also tweet about it or post about it on Facebook with the hashtag #adventuresinlent.