A few failures in the last 12 hours

1. My Mom is coming to visit us on Thursday (awesome!), and I had ordered some books from Amazon for her to bring down. A couple of them were a surprise for Kara, but when I emailed Mom the directions, I Cc's Kara on the email. Doh!
2. I was up late last night working, which caused more of a scramble getting out the door today. To parallelize the getting ready process, I was swashing mouth wash while getting my shoes on and heading out the door. When running to catch up with Kare, I forgot to account for Kara, I forgot to account for my velocity and the wind, and thus the mouth wash I spit out, landed back on my shirt and pants.
3. Tiredness reduces my sensitivity, and without thinking get on and off the bus before a woman with her infant. I expect she wasn't thinking nice things about gringos after that.

Lent '09 - Day 30: Impatience

I was reading Matthew this morning, and as you may be aware, this first book of the New Testament starts out with a genealogy of Jesus. If you've read the Old Testament, many of these names in Jesus' earthly lineage are familiar. In seeing all these generations listed out, it struck me how patient either God is for his plan to unfold and/or patient he expected his people to be. Promises were made to Abraham and David for example that were not fulfilled until hundreds of years later.

It was funny to recognize this patience demonstrated in Scripture, as I realized my own impatience of late. Due to the national soccer game tonight (which we we won!), traffic was a bear and every taxi already had someone in it. I had worked late the night before, and just wanted to get home to rest, but it wasn't happening. I would get frustrated and move to a different spot to hail a taxi or catch a bus. I know that if I had just stayed put and waited in line for a taxi at the grocery store, that I would have gotten home sooner than I did. In the past, I've considered myself a patient person, but that has proven wrong amidst some of the waiting here. I wish I could remember more examples, but I do remember hearing Kara say multiple times, "what's the rush?"

Have you thought about what's at the root of impatience? I think it has to do with a mixture of the following:

• Tiredness. Patience goes down when I'm more tired.
  
• Belief of self-importance, like "my time is more valuable than this".
• Discontent. When I am filled, especially spiritually, waiting is not so bad. It's an opportunity to read or pray. When I am not, I want to stay moving to distract me or deny the emptiness.

Last night, a mixture of all three were at work. The first is unavoidable at times, but two and three aren't good. Time to ask for help to move past them.

Lent '09 - Day 9: Praying Tired

Does anyone else struggle to pray or read Scripture when tired? I will be mid sentence, and just blank out. In observing Jesus, one sees him go and pray after long/hard days or through the night, and I wonder how he did it. I find it strange because I can do pretty well working when tired. Maybe because it's more active? Designing or thinking hard about a problem though are more difficult when tired, but answering questions or writing code for things I'm very familiar with is not so impaired. In thinking about it more, it's the higher level functions that are affected by being tired (e.g. listening, relating with feelings, studying, etc.). There are definitely times to forgo on sleep and bank on God to provide the energy to get through the day, but when it's within our control to get good sleep, we owe it our relationships (including with God) to do so.

Lent '08 - Day 21: Sleep

I definitely felt that it was Friday today. I was up late last night due to the water heater issues, up early to drive a friend to the airport, and then working long while waiting for Mitch and George to arrive at bus depot. By the end of the work day, I could feel how my brain wasn’t firing near as fast or well. Even though I was able to program without any operational issues, work wasn’t fun. Talking with Kara on the phone, I was short and crabby. I had hid the wall, and needed a nap before taking in tonight’s festivities with Mitch and George.

While drifting to sleep in the parked Volvo, I started thinking about Jesus and tiredness. Gospel writer’s don’t record him talking about the subject much. There’s the great story of Jesus falling asleep at the front of the boat despite some rough seas. Clearly Jesus got tired and slept. But I wonder if tiredness wasn’t as big of a deal in their electricity-less culture. When night-time hit, there wouldn’t have been a whole lot to do. No computers or television. While possible, walking around wouldn’t have been pleasant. There’s only so much you’ll do before candle-light. So, I suppose it’s valid to assume that sleep was more regular and plentiful in their day-to-day lives. Consequently, sleep would have had to have been more present, and thus unnecessary to talk about.

One particularly interesting situation with Jesus and sleep is in the garden on the night he was betrayed. Jesus is on his knees praying through the night, and a few times comes back to check on the disciples, only to find them sleeping. You can read the story here. What sticks out to me is when Jesus says “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." Jesus’ words are incredibly practical for those of us caught in a sleep-deprived culture. Jesus acknowledges that out inner self may want to persevere, but is tied with a body that has weakness. As a result, Jesus says to watch out and pray so that we don’t fall victim to the body’s weakness. It’s not 100% clear what temptation Jesus is speaking to. The surrounding context would be the temptation of denying Christ to save oneself ridicule or punishment. There’s the temptation to selfishly look after one’s own need (in this case being tired), despite being asked by a treasured friend and mentor to keep watch while he is distressed to the point of death. Jesus is pointing out a weakness so that we can work around it, not be bit by it. To not be owned, Jesus directs us to watch and pray. Watching and praying are really one continuous action. Applying this to sleep, notice your condition, be in communication with God about it. This sets us up to know when we need to say no so we can rest and whether we need to be extra mindful of depending God to get us over the hump of a present challenge (like the disciples needed in the garden).