I wish I could live my whole life like a slow, commitment-free Saturday morning. Wake up without an alarm, whenever my tired body feels ready. Make my bed, put on a comfy sweatshirt, grab a mug and fill it with coffee and then – just sit. Creating time and space to breathe and ask and receive. Time to take the full breath and ask the real question and receive the fullness of His Presence – the only Answer we ever really need.

Life in this human world does not make it easy for us to live the Saturday life. Reality calls for almost our entire lives to be days other than Saturdays, with time spent doing doing doing. When you are that exposed to the production machine, it is hard not to be addicted to it. It is hard not to tie your worth to your output.

But the Truth is – believe it or not – that we are worthy, loved, and complete on our Saturdays of nothing. In the quiet and slow, we are treasured.

I live my life in the Saturday-Monday tension. I want to be a Contemplative but my broken wires tell me to be a Productive instead. Where my heart and soul try to say: “breathe in love, exhale grace,” my brain transposes it: “DO MORE WORK FASTER YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT.”

Saturday life is full breaths, deep thoughts, complete and perfect peace. It is mindfulness, sitting, savoring, listening and actually hearing. It is worth based on existence.

Monday life is messy, rushing, running, failing, apologizing, multitasking, flailing. It is missing what matters for what it tells us is urgent. It is worth based on production.

Monday is like caffeine pumping through my bloodstream – faster, faster, move! Saturday is a cup of tea, quenching the real thirst, slowing me until my body aligns once again with my soul.

I want Saturday life, don’t you? I want to sit and meditate on His Word, to soak in His Promises. I want everything to be still, and to hear and know His Goodness.

We know how unsatisfying and crazy-making the Monday Machine is. We are weirdly addicted to its noise, its bells and whistles and how it seems to “need” us – more and more of us until we are hardly there anymore.

But a machine does what a machine does: it uses you. Uses you until you are no good to it anymore, and so it moves on to its next victim. There is no use. No point in trying to keep up with Monday.

Choose Saturday stillness as much as you can. Take time to breathe, to let your soul catch up to your body. Walk slower, listen more intently, focus on one thing at a time. Open Scripture and let it change you. Don’t just consume, digest. God has so much to teach us if only we would let Him speak. Don’t miss what He is offering to you.

If we all chose Saturday Stillness over the Monday Machine, maybe we would all experience a little resurrection. Maybe the world would be as it should be. I’m convinced that Saturday Stillness is the abundant life that Christ promised. On the other side of production is only more to be done. On the other side of Stillness is sweet communion with our Creator.

I wrote this on Saturday, when I was full on in the stillness. Then Monday came – and I lost to the machine. And Tuesday, again. Wednesday – I didn’t even stand a chance. The odds are not in our favor in this game;  there really is only one Saturday each week. But we have to try again, even when we fail; we wake up and hope for Saturday stillness.

My challenges for you this week:

Wake up with gratitude – pay attention to the first thoughts that come to you as you hear your alarm. Retrain your thoughts to change from scarcity, fear, or production to thoughts of gratitude, celebration, and presence.

Practice the spiritual discipline of pausing – check in with yourself throughout the day. Before you leave for work, make space to sit, breathe, and pray for even ten minutes. Before you go to bed, instead of scrolling mindlessly, spend time walking through your day with the Lord examining where you were present to Him and when you might’ve missed what He was doing or the invitations He might have been offering to you.

Give yourself grace – we are bound to fail. Instead of dwelling on the ways you lost the the machine, inhale a deep breath of grace and start again. His mercies are ALWAYS new.