What Do You Want on a Monday
Getting to the heart of things as you start a new work week
How are you feeling as you come into your Monday?
The first words of Jesus in the gospel of John are to a couple of guys who leave John the Baptist to follow him:
“What do you want?” he asks.
This question drives just about every interaction Jesus has through the gospel of John.
It’s also the question that the Lord has brought to my mind throughout the years to surface what’s in my own heart so that I might offer what’s in there to the Lord.
Usually, the question comes when I’m disappointed or frustrated. Sometimes it comes when I’m flat or tired.
So it’s a Monday. And especially if you’re tired, grumpy, disappointed, or just restless, take five to seven minutes to quiet yourself and see what the Lord might surface with this exercise.
Usually, it takes three passes to get to the bottom of things.
“What do you want?” The first time, I’m answering out of whatever energies I’m feeling in the moment. It’s usually more shallow, sometimes grousing, or whatever I want right now. That’s a good place to start.
“What do you want?” The second time I’m starting to push past initial responses to deeper motivations, deeper desires, deeper hopes, deeper fears.
“What do you want?” The third time and now I’m settling in, getting down to the core of what’s inside me. And once that’s surfaced, the Lord can go to work.
So find your journal or just a scrap piece of paper:
Top of mind, today, right now, in this instant, completely shallow or on the surface: What do you want?
One layer deeper: What do you want?
One more layer deeper still: What do you want?
Sit in silence before the Lord with his great question and your raw, candid answers in order to allow him to speak into what you’ve written down.
Let him comfort you, convict you, reorder some things, or anything else he might want to do with this. Write down anything you sense or experience.
This is just one of the exercises in this month’s Greenhouse Retreat. Click here for more of where that came from.
Greenhouse Retreats, helping you create conditions ideal for long-term fruitfulness.
Happy flourishing y’all,
Alex
P.S. Here’s the link again to October’s Greenhouse Retreat. There’s still time to do a half-day retreat this month or use the material to help you meet the Lord a little bit each day over the next couple of weeks.