Voiced Thoughts

What good am I? What good do I do here on earth? Why is it so easy for me to do what I don't want to do but so hard for me to do what I do want to do? Why do my emotions swing from really happy to totally despondent? Why do things seem to "go my way" one day and "go against me" the next? Ying and yang; hot and cold; good and bad. That is what the world is like for me right now, and I am the weight on the end of the pendulum being swung back and forth from one extreme to the other, perpetually.

The reason I am thinking like this seems to be obvious to me as I sit here and piously examine my life in recent days: I am not looking after my spiritual side. I know God is not only with me but also in me, but I don't live like it. I pay no heed to Him. Sometimes I even avoid going near His "domain" because I know what will happen when I do. I have become rebellious, distrustful, hateful, despondent, weary, restless, distracted and bleak. In fact, I can be concise and summarise everything I am feeling in four small words: I have lost joy.

I am a man of routine. For some, routine is boring and a cause of unhappiness. For me, however, routine is pseudo-perfection, from the perspective of my schedule. (Have you ever read any of Tom Clancy's novels? I feel the same about routine as Jack Ryan's wife as described in Patriot Games.) Whenever I establish a routine I know that everything has been sorted out: I know what I have done, what I am doing and what I have left to do. Without routine, chaos reigns and I am lost. I lose track of things and can get run down very quickly. As a result my health gets worse.

The reason I have lost joy is that I have lost my routine.

It sounds almost paradoxical but I find space in my routine. This space becomes part of my routine and it is in this very space where I replenish my joy. It is in this space where I can seek God without wondering about the rest of my schedule. To some this may read as though I merely fit God into my life rather than make my life fit round God, but I assure you that this works for me. (It misses the point anyway.)

If I restore my routine, it follows that I will restore my joy.

"Heresy," say some. "Joy comes from God alone." I agree. But if I restore my routine, I will find space. If I find space, I can seek God. If I seek God, I believe He will restore joy in my life.

I've looked at this logically but are these sorts of things are never logical. Pants.