Good Morning…
Okay. So I bumped into one weird word again two days in a row. In response to my post “Why Doesn’t God Speak Like Siri?” one subscriber wrote: “Mostly I’ve been hearing my God Garmin say, “Recalculating, recalculating.” The next day, after teaching class to moms of high school seniors, one woman stayed back to share a revelation, “I guess if our son chooses to go to a big football school, we will watch how he does and, if he can’t handle the environment, we will have to recalculate.”
Constantly curious, I google the word and Vocabulary.com says, “To recalculate is to count or measure something again, using new information. You might need to recalculate your monthly budget after your landlord raises the rent. If the vet says your cat is getting too fat, you’ll have to recalculate how much you feed him to help him lose weight. And when you’re planning a dinner party and your brother announces he’s bringing five friends, you’ll need to recalculate how much food to make. We can trace the verb calculate back to the Latin calculus, originally “pebble used as a reckoning counter.” The prefix re- adds the sense of “do it again.”
The very same day God gave me a tangible example. Every toilet paper dispenser in our house was empty, except for the final roll we were taking bathroom to bathroom. During the summer months, there were six family members in and out, sporadically. For the past three weeks, I have invited into our home one weekly Bible study each day, four Listening Groups per month, and the special people I am privileged to meet for spiritual direction. Each group gathering hosts from eight to forty eight. Experientially I learned, I need to recalculate the amount of toilet paper to buy at the store!
What does this have to do with our life of faith? Life bombards us with new information constantly, and God asks us to regularly readjust, reappraise, reconsider daily choices with Him. When we find ourselves unable to handle environmental stressors and we feel as empty as a used up toilet paper roll, will we quiet ourselves to listen to our God Garmin? “Recalculating, recalculating.”
This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it” (Isaiah 30:15, NIV).
Maybe it is time to for each of us to recalculate our need for repentance and rest, for quietness and trust.
…Sue…
