Musings From A Rolling Eyed Turtle

It’s right around the corner, 2022 that is. Fear not, this is not a post to encourage New Year’s resolutions!  Instead, it’s something that I hope will encourage you as consider the craziness of the last two years and wonder what 2022 will be like. I’m going to share a verse from the book of Jeremiah.  Aside from all the appropriate arguments for context and that it is hard to definitively say that it is a promise for today, nonetheless, if we consider the character of God throughout all Scripture, the verse still points us to what God does for His people that He loves so dearly! Jeremiah 31:25 – “For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.” As is my bent in my writing, I would first point us to some basic definitions of the words: Satisfy :  to make happy, to gratify to the full. Weary :  exhausted in strength, endurance, vigor or freshness; having one's patience, tolerance, or pleasure exhausted. Languishing :  to be or become fee

Last time I wrote about how swimming helps me to rebalance.  As I swim back and forth, alone with my thoughts, I often think or pray and feel rebalanced when I’m done.  Well, except for a recent time…. This time, I was totally distracted.  I had inadvertently left my goggles at work.  I do carry a new pair with me in my swim bag in case my old ones break.  So I took them out but it took a lot of swimming time just to get them adjusted to fit properly.  So much for rebalancing! You could say that I was distracted by all the goggle challenges.  I think I also failed at something mentioned in 2 Corinthians.  In chapter 10 and verse 5, we are told that we should take every thought captive to obey Christ.  I was so distracted by trying to get my goggles to fit that I wasn’t taking any thoughts captive to obey Christ.  You could even say that I was kind of acting like Martha.  You probably remember her from Luke 10.  She was distracted with lots of preparations.  She even said this to

“Heading out to the Y to rebalance”. I send that out by text, normally twice a week.  It’s code. Well, it’s not like code words used in cloak and dagger stuff.  It is much more boring than that.  It’s a text I send to my wife two days a week when I leave from work and head to the YMCA to swim laps during my lunch break.  I want someone to know where I am going in case something happens. The rebalance thing… After nearly 30 years of swimming laps, swimming for me has mostly become a very mechanical thing.  That is, I don’t have to think much about what I am doing or concentrate on it.  I just swim back and forth.  But more so, as I enter into this mechanical state of swimming, I’m able to use the time to think and pray.  I can turn something over and over in my mind and look at it from different angles, sometimes resulting in some level clarity or even a decision. And while I wouldn’t want to try to build a case for the “spirituality of swimming”, I will say that I appreciat