Tuesday: The Mastery of Enforced Idleness
WEEK 43
TUESDAY
THE MASTERY OF ENFORCED IDLENESS
Luke 11:9-13
We now turn to another mastery in the pages of the Acts—the mastery of an enforced idleness.
We have been noting how prayer turned the early Christians to amazing outgoing activity. “Mary” expressed this when she said, “Prayer seems to work in reverse with me. Instead of making me quiet, it injects into me an amazing vitality. I feel as though when I come out of prayer, I want to do something about everything.” That expresses the heightening of one’s vitality through prayer.
But there’s another side to life; we are often forced into physical inactivity we cannot control. Can there be mastery then? If there is mastery of activity, can there be mastery of inactivity?
In the pages of the Acts inactivity is of two kinds: chosen and imposed. The chosen inactivity was seen in the disciples waiting for ten days for the coming of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus had said “go,” he had also said “stay” and “wait.” For ten days they did nothing but stay and wait. They might have been champing at the bit, eager to be off to tell the good news of his resurrection, but it would have been half-baked if they had. For not only were they to tell of his resurrection; they were to illustrate it. They were to be an illustration as well as an illumination. People were to feel the resurrection through these resurrected lives. So the best thing they ever did was not to do. For ten days they were quiet and receptive. “You will receive,” said Jesus; and they had to learn that art of receiving before they knew the art of giving. For ten days they lifted their chalices to heaven to be filled with the wine of the Spirit; and when they put these chalices to the parched lips of humanity, they were full to the brim. We rush out fussily without any staying and waiting, and we put empty cups to parched lips. The passage “who works for those who wait for him” (Isa 64:4 RSV) expresses the fact that to wait is to work. For then we work with resources not our own. There is a divine plus added to all we do and say. The disciples learned that the greatest working is not working—it is receiving. Then our work is not fussy activity but fruitful creativity.
O Jesus of the mountainside, help me to expose my inmost being to the incoming of your Spirit. Then my doing will be a doing, plus. My love will be a loving, plus. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall live with the windows of my spirit open to the highest God has for me.