Centered

If you can't keep your mind on what you're doing because your thoughts are full of all the other things you have to do...

...if your greatest fear regarding a possible crisis is all the things you would have to reschedule after it was over...

...if you feel like a rag in a clothes dryer, whirling at top speed but going nowhere...

...at least you have plenty of company.

The ability to do more than ever before, faster than ever before, is both the advantage and the curse of modern life. We wonder if we can stand the pace another day, yet we doubt we can give up anything. We feel doomed-if-we-do-and-doomed-if-we-don't.

And too often, time with God becomes just one more item to get through and check off--or one more project we can put aside for "later" because there are no immediate consequences for neglecting it....

...or are there? Would those feelings that life is out of control, those bursts of despair, that sense of "I don't know what to do first" be assaulting us so viciously if we'd bothered to ask God for wisdom to know what to do and strength for the task? Are we, perhaps, thinking of Him only as "an ever-present help in trouble" (Ps. 46:1, NIV), and not also as the One Who knows every detail of our everyday lives beforehand and wants to guide us through them (cf. Ps. 139:1-18)?

If the sun suddenly disappeared, every planet in the solar system would fly away into space. When we forget to keep God at the center of our lives, we likewise careen off on a blind course into nowhere.

A circle has a center and so does the earth,
And we seek our own Center from the moment of birth.
As the sun is the center that the planets go round,
We will never know peace till our Center is found.

An apple has a center that we call the core,
And we all need a Center as a house needs a door.
Every peach has a center that some folks call a stone,
And an uncentered soul drifts apart and alone.

There only is one Center to anchor our hearts--
The True Source of all Power from which all of life starts.
Without God, life loses meaning and we are without hope,
Swinging helpless and frail as a battered old rope.

Let Jesus be your Center; trust ever in Him;
Whether pathways seem clear or the way ahead looks dim,
Every soul with God as Center is as safe in its course
As a planet held firmly in gravity's force.