Business school with Jesus: building castles of stone

This is my confession of the day. I don't like disappointing people. So when another round of chronic fatigue swipes across my deadlines, I am gutted. I know there are people now I have to let down.

Imagine my joy and wonder then, to discover what I recently did, that when you are surrounded and waiting on Jesus - they don't mind waiting!

"We all know Jesus' timing is the best," my publisher replied when I had to push back another deadline.

"I'm just at peace with what God wants to do with it," said an author I'm going to be illustrating for.

"It was a lovely idea but I'm just happy to do what God wants me to do," said another writer who was exploring a job with me.

I mean, what a privilege to be surrounded by and working with people who are trusting in God's timing and pace. What a way to work.- when waiting on God is a normal part of the decision making process! When I can interpret mt overwhelm or stress or exhaustion, not as a damning indiement of my work-life balance, or a failure to be high-capacity enough, or as whiplash to hurry up, but as an invitation to WAIT.

"Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

   for his compassions never fail.

 They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

Lamentations 3:22-24

We are not eaten alive, the Jesus way of working, we are not consumed. We stand in the moments we are in, recieving the compassions of the day, knowing Jesus is enough. And we wait.

I want to build something that outlives me. Don't we all want that for our lives. That when the sandcastles of my life are washed away by the morning tide, there is something constructed with rock underneath that remains? What will time reveal when I am old and can no longer keep my life going at speed? What will there be left when the sea has come and gone? Flat wet sand? Or a stone ruin, bricks tumbled but telling a story, a place where you can sit and ponder the view and imagine what it used to be like here, a place where children buy wooden swords in the gift shop and become knights for the day.

I know the only thing worth building with is rock. I know, when I stop, that sometimes I've been pouring into myself that is just my idea. It might be fabulous, but its made of sand. It wont even last the next wave let alone the tide, or generations. I can not conjour those ideas. I need someone bigger than me.

It's only Jesus' ideas that will last. Only the things that contain his breath that can truly come to life.

"We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began."

1 Corinthians 2:7

Jesus reveals to us a deeper wisdom, secret truths, underground mysteries that unlock his mind to us. That unlock our lives. Even if they look like foolish decisions to others.

But it's hard isnt it, to listen to what God is saying. It's hard to keep his ideas at the front of my brain, at the front of my thinking.

Especially when I am so irresistably drawn to the numebers. We are surrounded by them. Numbers of peopel who showed up, or who stayed, numbers of followers, or sales, or posts, or successes, or cash, or levels, or dress sizes, or pieces of the pie...but what if the part of the foolishness of heaven is that its really crap at maths?

And the wisdom is being completely unable to count. Or add. Or multiply.

Perhaps the business of Jesus is not about counting in any way at all.

I pause here to ask God, then what do we measure in? What do you do instead of counting?And there he is sitting on the beach of my imagination, the waves lapping at the castle we are building, the tide coming in to pull at its edges, but he says nothing at all.

He is just looks at me and smiles, then goes back to enjoying the beach.

My son doesnt count the sea glass he spent collecting in Scotland. He weighs it.

He weighs it like treasure. Stuffs it into pockets so full they pull his shorts down. Lays it all out on the table. Spends long minutes turning each sea-softened piece in his hands.

What am I looking for in all of this? Cash or treasure? Isn't that so often the difference? When I REALLY think about it? Do I want the worlds success? Or someone elses?

What do I want my life to be full of? To be made of? What do I want to be like when I'm old and greyer? Do I want to be so practiced at gratitude that I sit and repeat how lovely the day is when my memory is replaying tricks on me? Do I want those who stumble over the footings of my life to find rocks that they too can build with, even if they start something brand new?

What a joy to find myself part of the secret world of christian authors and artists and missionaries and entrepreneurs. My friends who are crazy enough and courageous enough to pour their precious oil on the feet of Jesus, knowing it may never amount to best sellers, acclamation, a pile of cash, or a massive following. But oh, the smell is sweet! And it fills the air around them. And his smile is worth it. These are the people who know the weight of a smile.

The truth is, I can not make my sandcastles into stone ones. But Jesus can build real castles in my life if I ask him to. And the privilege of my life is that he will let me join in with him. If I can listen. If I can wait. If I can remember not to get caught in counting, but to concentrate on weighing his smile.

We always seem to end up here Jesus. With what I see reflected in your eyes. And even more beautiful, the love I see inside them.

Read more about Jesus success here:

This ones a really special one. I think about this all the time, a real treasure from the pits.

https://www.katyhollamby.com/post/a-cathedral-in-my-heart

And this one is more recent, thinking about what to do when our ambition is the engine.

Thank you for being here, right to the end. Shares are super helpful, comments are super encourgaing. Thank you.

Katy x