Christian word for surprise is grace

One day Winnie the Pooh asked his friend, Christopher Robin, what he liked to do more than anything in the world. He replied, ?What I like best is doing nothing.? When Pooh asked what it means to do nothing, Christopher Robin said, ?It?s when people ask you what you?re going to do just as you go out the door and you say ?nothing? and then you go and do it.?

Summer is a great time for doing ?nothing.? Which, of course, doesn?t literally mean nothing, but the kind of activities that are unstructured, unplanned and often lead to the unexpected. Occasionally (or more often than that) we fill our lives with so many organized and calculated activities that there?s no room for something surprising to happen.

The Christian word for surprise is ?grace.? It means something that?s unexpected, undeserved and well surprising! Grace is a gift that comes when you least expect it but when you most need it. My dog is an expert at grace. She often knows just the right moment to stick her nose on my lap and give me one of those looks that makes whatever it was that was bothering me go away.

But even though grace is something that you can?t plan or calculate, you can open up a space for it. We all need to plan a little time every day and every week to do what Christopher Robin calls, ?nothing.? Nothing might be different for every person. For some it?s reading a book. For others it?s going fishing or going for a walk or sitting in your lawn chair with a glass of lemonade.

Psalm 37 says, ?Be still and wait upon the Lord.? I take that to mean that simply waiting around and doing nothing is sometimes the best way to get in touch with God. There comes a point when all our busy-ness is just a busy mess. I hope that you take some time this summer to do nothing and expect a little grace to fall into your lap.