Too many processes

The other day I wanted to turn the laptop on quickly and to quickly show my son some things online. However, the laptop, having sat in its bag for maybe a month or so, took a bit of 'waking up'.  Eventually, it showed the desk top as normal but when I double clicked on the web browser icon, it took a while to come up.  Once on the internet, for every click the laptop was laboriously slow to respond.

The computer was trying to look like everything was fine on the surface but there was clearly something going on in the background - probably downloading or installing some update or other.

The computer was trying to show me a web browser and let me look around on the internet but everything was hampered by the fact that it was also trying to do a load of other things behind the scenes.

It struck me that this is a picture of where I'm at just now.  Everything seems hard work and slow. I find it hard to think and process stuff. It's hard to be as productive as I normally am.

There are too many processes going on!

God is showing me that right now is a time for slowing down and stopping lots of things I've been doing.  Not because I can't do them but because I have too many processes going on.

I've been trying to figure out  who I am, what I believe, how I came to be who I am and where I am, and what things should look like going forward, how to parent well, how to know God and love God well etc etc.

This is taking a lot of processing power.

I'm beginning to realise I can't process all that while also running full tilt at life. The result is that I'm not doing well at either.

So I've taken a step back from lots of the things I was doing. I've taken the pressure off myself to achieve so much. I'm letting my days be less crammed. I'm giving myself space and time to take longer over things and to have some time to rest.

On the surface it may not look like much is happening.  It just looks like I became a sluggish web browser.

But God is doing something. Something very important is going on under the surface, in my hardware. But it's going to take some time.

So I'm learning to patient. Mostly with myself. Which I don't find easy.

But I think that the fundamental downloads of knowing God, knowing who I am and what His desire and plans are for my life, are worth shutting down the frantic rush of running groups and keeping on top of every resolution I ever made.

Sometimes when the computer gets 'stuck' you have to go into Task Manager and force a few applications or processes to shut down in order to free the computer up to do something else.

That's what I'm doing just now.

I encourage you to consider what 'processes' need a bit of time and space to complete and whether there are any processes that just need to be 'shut down' for now.

Thank you God that You are our good IT Administrator. We trust You to download what is good, helpful and important for our lives.  Help us see what is cluttering up our minds and processing power and to be prepared to clear the space for what You have for us.  Amen.