About a week ago, I found myself in the woods again. This time, I was with two friends who I trust to hold my heart with a firm grasp, people that I can process anything with, people that love the Lord with the same passion that I do. We spent one whole day with the Lord out at a prayer cabin. That meant agreeing to avoid socializing from the hours of 9 am to 5 pm and to pursue the Lord in prayer, reflection, play and rest. Have you ever done that? It’s amazing. Mine looked like journaling out my prayers, searching for answers to a hard question in scripture, climbing up into a kids fort to read and revisit prayers that are still open ended, getting caught in a rain storm and deciding to dance in it for a minute, cozying up with a cup of coffee and a book on the supernatural and laying still while Steffany Gretzinger sang worship over me. All the while, I was asking the Lord, “What do we do now?”
For the first time in my life, this season has been ruthlessly unscheduled. Aside from the ways I’ve planned adventure, road trips and specific time with friends, I have woken up most mornings wondering what the day would bring.
Some days, that feels overwhelming and words like “useless,” “lazy,” and “unproductive” creep into my head. Most days, I feel thankful that this year of my life has offered me so much unbridled time. I certainly don’t want to miss the gift and let guilt bully me into believing my Father isn’t the type of guy that loves to bless me, ya know?
But we are a culture that is used to full calendars, regularity, routine, schedule. We have been taught safety in boundaries, comfort in a clock and success in efficiency. Give someone a blank page to draw on and you’ll find an even blanker look on their face. It’s hard. We weren’t bred for this sort of life.
In my old cubical, I had a Rifle Paper and Co. calendar that I adored. My favorite thing was filling in the squares with the concerts I’d attend that month, the weekends I planned vacations, my friend’s weddings or anything that meant I was busy or that my time was spoken for. My friends used to laugh and make jokes about the calendar and where I might be able to pencil them in.
And here’s the thing, under the guise of being a socialite filled with friends and adventure, the truth is, I was terrified of the open space. An open weekend at that time in my life equated to loneliness, so I did my best to schedule things that would keep me in company. During that same stage of life, the Lord would end up filling my need for community in a new way that allowed me to begin the process of growing out of fear of loneliness. You can read all about that in one of my favorite blogs to date called “Strawberry Jam.” But for the sake of my point here, I want to be clear: I’ve historically enjoyed the scheduled life.
So what happens when you take a gal who was supposed to be fully scheduled for a whole year and you drop her in her parent’s house to live and wait for 9 months?
The evening after my gals and I spent the day with the Lord, we sat down at the table to eat over candlelight and watch a storm roll into the woods. Excited to talk about the Lord and everything we gathered from the day, I started us out by asking, “What is something you have been thankful for during this season?”
Sometimes when I ask a question, I’m so quick to dive into someone else’s mind that I forget to search mine, so I wasn’t really prepared when they flipped the question back to me.
But God filled in the space. I guess He had something to say.
What flooded my mind was all the little surprises that God has given me when I’ve had space open, unscheduled and even been a bit worried the time would be wasted.
When I drive up to NWA, I’m displaced, in a way. There are plenty of friends to see and stay with, that’s not what I mean, but I often yearn for a quiet place to be alone in between pouring myself out on coffee dates/lunches/hang outs. Other times, I’ve had enough alone time and I need and desire companionship in between things I’ve scheduled.
I’ve had a lot of fun watching God care for me in this area.
I’ve been delighted in the times I’ve thought I’d spend the day alone and a friend was randomly free to be with me all day or the moments I was driving around NWA aimlessly without a place to station, annoyed that I would need to grab another meal out and someone would call and say, “come have dinner with us!” I felt seen the time a friend popped up on a trail I was walking and encouraged me to keep on with missions or when I got randomly invited to a game night when I didn’t have anything to do.
Oh if we would just trust Him with our hearts desire.
The other day, I had an hour to kill in between visits and I ducked into a coffee shop I don’t normally go to. There sat a friend I had been trying to grab ALL YEAR. She had 2 hours free. And you bet we filled em’. Coincidence? No, that’s just my Dad and His promises.
Even the prayer cabin itself was a bit of a surprise, a quick invite, a spontaneous add and an enormous gift. As I watched the flicker of the candles bounce off my friends faces, heard them laugh and get worked up over hard conversation and allowed myself to self realize, it was another tear filled moment of wondering what in the world I’d do without Him and wishing every one I’ve ever loved could experience His love. The kind that never runs out, the kind that never hides from us, the kind that is perfect in all its ways, the only kind that promises hope.
I can honestly say, not a day of openness has gone without feeling His presence, His direction, and His surprise. Sometimes it’s filled with time just with Him and sometimes it’s filled with someone who points to Him and other times it’s filled with people I’m supposed to point to Him. Either way, I want it to always be about Him.
I was on a walk the other day desperate to get out of the house and do something, anything. I ran into a man that I would spend 1 hour with talking about Jesus and the gospel of grace. Even weirder, this guy was on the team of people that recovered my sister’s body when she died so I got the opportunity to thank Him and ask Him if he had a faith that gave Him strength when He observed hard things. I mean what are the odds? As we parted, he said “Every once in a while I run into someone like you and get all shaken up again wondering what to believe!” I replied, “Glad I could be part of the shake up.” “You are? You didn’t have anything else to do with your time today,” he asked. “Well, this is kind of part of the job,” I got to say, with a wink.
Was this encounter a coincidence? No way. He fills the space.
You see, there is specific purpose in everything God does and when we lay down control and ask Him to take on our calendars or even a portion of them we are yielding to His supernatural version of efficiency and allowing Him to complete His plans through us. We are saying yes to taking a role on the greatest stage there is flooded by the spotlight of eternal purpose. The good news is his plans will be completed either way, but this way, we get to be blessed as he uses us as tools for His kingdom work. And because He is the master of multitasking, He weaves in little surprises and gifts just for us along the way.
Is there anything more satisfying than taking part in the plans of the creator of the universe? Than yielding to the one who loves you more than any thing can? Than placing your time in the hands of the one that made it?
Have you given God any open space lately? An hour, a day, a weekend? You might be thinking, “What am I supposed to do with all that time?” but the thing is, you don’t have to plan anything. He’ll do it. He’ll fill in the space. And man oh man will He fill you up.
I recommend this:
- Go somewhere quiet, somewhere alone, somewhere you can see the sun and maybe some water
- Take a notebook, a pen, a bible and your ear buds (I recommend Steffany Gretzinger for any mode of contemplation on the goodness of the Lord)
- Turn off your notifications.
- Sit there. For at least 1 hour.
- Ask Jesus what He wants to say to you.
- Listen.
I don’t worry about loneliness much anymore, I don’t fear the open calendar, and I’m still working on FOMO. And that’s not because I’m some awesome person who has it all figured out, it’s because I’ve practiced the art of open space with Jesus and He and He alone has proven to be a friend, an adventure partner and a gift giver. He’s never left me thirsty, He’s never left me wandering and He’s never starved me of friendship.
If I lost every loved one I know, I know I’d still be loved. And that kind of confidence is what I get to walk in as the daughter of the most high God and the passion that lights me up for those that don’t know this version of the Father.
In Christ, we are never alone and nothing is ever wasted and nothing can steal our hope or separate us from His unending devotion.
So as I step into next year, unsure where I’m going, who I’m going to meet and what I’m going to do, I have one task I can count on: Let Him fill the space.
