A few years ago, we took the family to Disney World. We had a great time, but if you’ve ever tried to do Disney with a family, you know there is a certain amount of strategy involved. We’d get off one ride and immediately start thinking about the next one. We had reservations, ride times, places we needed to be, and windows we couldn’t miss. There were things happening all around us, but sometimes they became little more than scenery on the way to wherever we were supposed to be next.
A couple of years later, Karen and I went to Ireland, and that trip felt completely different. We landed around 11 in the morning and pretty much immediately started driving around and sightseeing. At one point, Karen noticed the top of a cathedral a few streets away and wondered what it was. I suggested we drive over and take a look.
“Really?” she asked.
“We’ve got plenty of time.”
So we went, and we did that a lot on that trip. We had plans, but they weren’t set in concrete. We’d see something interesting and go look at it. We’d take our time. There wasn’t always another reservation or ride time pulling us away from wherever we happened to be, and I enjoyed that trip differently because of it.
Maybe part of the reason was that I wasn’t constantly asking, What are we doing next?
Week Seven: What Are We Doing Next?
This past Sunday, Sam started his sermon on Philippians 4 by talking about spending a weekend alone with his young son. They did a lot together and had a good time, but his son kept asking some version of the same question: “What are we doing next?” They’d be doing one thing, and he was already thinking about the next thing.
I laughed because that’s what kids do. Then I realized that’s what I do.
I stay in a nearly constant state of planning. There is always another project somewhere in my head. With Grit & Wit, I’ll finish one article and start thinking about the next one. I’ve got Waiting for the King coming out in November, and even though the manuscript is essentially finished, I still open it about every other day looking for a mistake or something I could make better. Apparently former English teachers aren’t supposed to publish books because we are psychologically incapable of declaring anything finished.
It’s not just writing, either. With four kids, somebody is always going somewhere. Karen puts everything on the calendar, and then I become the oracle of family logistics. What time do we need to leave? How long will it take to get there? Who needs a ride? Who has practice? Who has a game? Karen worries more about the finances because she worked in finance for years. She sees numbers everywhere. I worry about everything else—the house, the cars, the schedule, or the HVAC unit that suddenly makes a noise I don’t remember it making yesterday. Both of us play the role of the gas and the brake at different times and in different areas.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with planning. In our house, it’s necessary. But sometimes I wonder if we do the same thing with God that Sam’s son was doing with him. We’re standing in the middle of something He has given us, and instead of being there, we’re already asking Him, What are we doing next?
Pray About Everything
Paul writes in Philippians 4 not to be anxious about anything, but instead to pray about everything. That’s one of those verses that’s a lot easier to underline than it is to live. Sam pointed out Sunday that we tend to reverse it. We worry about everything and pray about some things.
I can do that. Usually, the things that get me are the things I can’t control, especially when they have the potential to disrupt our family. A few months ago, we had to replace one of our HVAC units. Then about a month ago, the smaller unit started acting strange. Thankfully, it only needed refrigerant, but my brain was already preparing for HVAC Armageddon. Unexpected home repairs, car repairs, expenses we didn’t plan for, or things happening to my kids that Daddy can’t fix—those are the places my mind tends to go.
The funny thing is, I’ve never thought prayer had to be reserved for the big stuff. I was blessed to learn from a young age that God is Someone I can talk to anytime and anywhere. I’m the guy who will pray for a cloud while I’m mowing the yard in the heat. I’m serious. Lord, You see me out here. A little cloud would be fantastic right about now. Sometimes He is gracious and gives me one.
This past week, though, the prayers were considerably bigger than clouds. My Mama had a pacemaker put in, and I prayed hard leading up to it. I knew the procedure was common. I knew the doctors knew what they were doing. I also knew where Mama was going if God chose for things to go differently than we wanted, and I told Him that.
But I was also honest with Him.
“I still need my Mama, and my kids still need their Mee Mee.”
The procedure was over in about an hour, and when they brought her back, she recognized me immediately. Even better, she felt better almost immediately. I was elated, and I thanked God for it.
Prayer isn’t pretending that we aren’t scared. It isn’t finding the correct combination of Christian words that guarantees the outcome we want. Sometimes prayer is simply telling God the truth about where we are and admitting that He is God and we aren’t.
Just the other night, I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I started praying. I have no idea when the prayer ended because I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of it. When that happens, I usually just tell God the next morning, “Thank You, Lord, for letting me fall asleep.” I figure there are worse ways to fall asleep than talking to your Father.
What do I pray for? I pray for my wife. I pray for my kids and their future spouses. I pray for my job. I pray for you. I pray for celebrities who could use their platforms to spread the Gospel. I pray for everything I can think of until I fall asleep.
That’s really what “pray about everything” looks like for me. Sometimes it’s Mama getting a pacemaker. Sometimes it’s a child whose feelings have been hurt and I can’t do anything to fix it. Sometimes it’s money, the house, the schedule, or whatever problem has decided to show up that week. And sometimes it’s asking God for a cloud while I’m mowing.
He gets all of it.
I think most of my worry comes from trying to do God’s job. I want to protect my family. When we’re out together, my head is usually on a swivel. I’m watching where everybody is and paying attention to what’s happening around us. Karen can tell when I’m doing it and will sometimes say, “Everything’s fine.” It helps a little, but I’m still Dad. I’m never going to stop being the protector.
There are things, though, that I cannot protect my family from. I can’t stop someone from hurting one of my children’s feelings. I can’t make sure they get every position they want, every recognition they deserve, or every opportunity they work for. When one of those things doesn’t happen, I get frustrated because, of course, I’m biased. I want all the good stuff to happen to my kids.
But I can’t control other people or every outcome, and I can’t remove every bump from the road in front of them. Tony Evans once used the illustration of Plinko from The Price Is Right. Everybody drops that chip hoping it lands in the big-money slot, but there are all those pegs along the way. The chip gets bumped one direction and then another. Life does that. Plans change, but God doesn’t.
I tell my kids that even though I know it’s usually the last thing somebody wants to hear when they’re disappointed: God has a plan. Apparently I need to hear myself say it sometimes, too.
When I worry, I’m usually trying to do God’s job. When I pray, I’m finally admitting that God is ultimately in control.
What’s Taking Up Space in My Head?
Paul doesn’t stop with prayer. In Philippians 4:8, he tells us what deserves space in our minds: things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.
That matters because my brain can come up with plenty of alternatives. Depending on the day, the questions sound different. At work, it’s Am I stuck? Am I going anywhere? Am I actually making a difference? At home, it’s Am I doing enough for my family? Am I the best husband and father I can be? Have any of my decisions messed something up? Should I be doing more? Then there’s writing: Does anybody care? How many people actually read this stuff? Do these books even matter?
I don’t live in those thoughts like I might have when I was younger, but they still show up. When I wonder whether I’m doing enough for my family, the people in my family tell me I am. That doesn’t necessarily make the question disappear forever, but it helps. Their answer is enough.
I’ve gotten better about the numbers with writing, too. I’ll watch how something performs the first day because I’m interested in what connects with readers. After that, I’m usually working on the next thing. I remind myself that the people God wanted to see or read it will get it, and everyone else is a bonus.
Social media has made all of us more exposed to what everybody else is doing and what everybody else thinks. We waited until Brighton was 18 before allowing him on social media, and even then we had a long conversation about it. Our value doesn’t come from any of that. It doesn’t come from likes, followers, subscribers, recognition, awards, jobs, or whether everybody approves of us. I am not a mistake.
God doesn’t make mistakes. I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
It took me a while to really believe that. I didn’t have a lot of confidence growing up, and younger Maury spent entirely too much time worrying about what other people thought. Karen helped change some of that, along with other people God placed in my life. Eventually, I stopped spending quite so much energy trying to please everybody else and became more concerned with pleasing God.
I’m still working on it.
We’ve all heard the saying that idle hands are the devil’s playground, and there’s probably some truth in that. My mind can wander when it isn’t occupied. But I think Satan likes busyness, too. Work is work. Tasks are tasks. Even good things can consume so much of our attention that we stop paying attention to the things that matter most.
Church can do it. Work can do it. Writing can do it. Family schedules can do it. Even ministry can do it. You can be incredibly busy doing good things and still realize you’ve barely thought about God all day.
That’s why I have to intentionally redirect myself. Sometimes that means turning on Christian music and working in the garage or messing with the Jeep. Sometimes it’s Scripture. Sometimes it’s prayer. Sometimes it’s simply stopping long enough to notice what’s happening around me.
Paul doesn’t tell us simply to stop thinking. He tells us where to put our thoughts.
Lord knows I try.
Make Sure They See You Watching
One place I’ve gotten pretty good about being present is when one of my kids is playing a sport. If I’m sitting at Chloe’s tennis match or Grayson’s flag football games, I don’t spend the whole time looking at my phone. There’s a reason for that: I never know when they might look over at me, and if they do, I want them to see me watching them, not my screen.
Grayson is notorious for being on the field and looking dead at me. He’ll point at me, and I’ll point back at him.
The other day, Chloe was having a rough tennis match. At one point she looked over, and we locked eyes. I mouthed a really exaggerated, “It’s OK,” then pushed my hands downward while mouthing, “Calm down. Take a breath.”
That was all I could do. I couldn’t play the point for her or fix whatever was frustrating her. I couldn’t walk onto the court and make it easier. But when she looked for me, I was there.
I’ve thought about that moment several times since. Attention is a funny thing. We give it away all day without thinking much about it, but giving someone our full attention may be one of the simplest ways to tell them they matter. That’s part of why Paul’s words about our thoughts hit me. Where we put our minds matters. Where we put our eyes matters. What gets our attention matters.
And right now, there are some things I really don’t want to miss.
Brighton is a senior in high school. Next year he’ll be in college. That’s a weird sentence to type.
One of the things I’m already thinking about is supper. We eat together as a family every night, and we all have our seats. It’s ordinary enough that I don’t think much about it most nights. Next year, one of those chairs will be empty during the week.
Hopefully Brighton will come home on weekends. We’ll still eat together, and he’ll sit back down in his spot. But it won’t be every night anymore, and I already know I’m going to miss that.
I sometimes wonder what older Maury would tell current Maury to quit worrying about. I doubt he’ll care how many people opened this issue of Grit & Wit. He probably won’t remember whether I caught every typo in Waiting for the King. I doubt he’ll remember the HVAC repair, the schedule we were trying to coordinate, or whatever thing at work had me worried that particular week.
But I bet he’d give quite a bit to sit at that table again with all four kids in their seats.
That’s the stuff I don’t want to miss while I’m asking what we’re doing next.
Don’t Miss This
I keep going back to Ireland. Karen saw the top of a cathedral a few streets away and wondered what it was. I said we should go see it. She was a little surprised because it wasn’t part of the plan, but that didn’t matter. “We’ve got plenty of time,” I told her.
I like that version of me. Not because we actually have plenty of time. The older I get, the more I realize just how quickly time moves. I like that version of me because, for once, I wasn’t worried about what came next. There was something worth seeing right in front of us, and we went to see it.
That’s what I don’t want to miss now.
Brighton is a senior. Next year one of the chairs at our supper table will be empty during the week. Chloe is playing tennis, and every once in a while she’s going to look into the stands to see if Daddy is watching. There are flag football games, movie nights, rides in the Jeep, conversations in the kitchen and a thousand other ordinary things happening in our house that don’t seem particularly important until you realize they won’t happen quite this way forever.
There will always be something next. Another article. Another project. Another bill. Another repair. Another place somebody needs to be. Some of those things need my attention, and planning is part of taking care of the people God has given me.
I just don’t want tomorrow to take so much of my attention that I miss today.
When I worry, I’m usually trying to do God’s job. When I pray, I’m finally admitting that God is ultimately in control. And when I’m present, I notice the people around me are present a little more, too.
Maybe that’s part of what I’m learning from Philippians 4. Pray about everything. Think about the things that are true and good and worthy of my attention. Trust God with what I cannot control. And then actually be where He has put me.
I don’t know what we’re doing next.
For once, maybe I don’t need to.
I don’t want to miss this.
Live It
This week, pay attention to where your mind goes when it has room to wander. What are you worrying about that you haven’t really given to God? What situation are you trying to control that was never yours to control in the first place?
Then pay attention to the people God has placed right in front of you. Put the phone down when you can. Let the next task wait a few minutes. Pray about the thing that’s bothering you, even if it seems as insignificant as wanting a cloud while you mow the yard. Paul tells us to pray about everything and then to be intentional about what fills our minds. Maybe we need to practice both.
Don’t become so consumed with what’s next that you miss what God is doing now.
Dinner Table Devotional
Read: Philippians 4:4–9
Talk About It:
What is something you worry about even though you know you can’t control it?
Paul says to pray about everything. Are there things that seem too small to pray about? Why?
What are some thoughts that can take your attention away from what God says is true?
What is one good thing happening in your life right now that you don’t want to rush past?
How can we help each other be more present with God and with one another this week?
Pray:
Lord, thank You for caring about everything that matters to us, from the things that frighten us to the ordinary details of our days. Forgive us when we worry instead of praying and when we become so focused on what’s next that we miss what You’ve given us now. Help us fill our minds with what is true, keep our attention on You, and be fully present with the people You’ve placed around us. Remind us that You are in control, so we don’t have to be. In the great, big name of Jesus. Amen.