Declining inspired invitations
Yesterday I had a random idea to reach out to a friend and invite her to go walking with me while our kids were at their youth activities at church. Immediately following the idea, a wave of excuses and doubts flowed in:
- She probably already has other plans.
- She's going to think it's a lame idea.
- It's going to be so awkward because she'll feel obligated to say yes.
- There are 1,000 things she'd rather do with that free time.
- I should be using that free time for work.
- It's 7pm on a Wednesday. No one hangs out at that time.
- It's only an hour... who even meets up for only an hour?
This wave almost stopped me, but it receded enough for me to say, "Eh, what the heck," and send her a quick text. She responded immediately and said she had planned to go to yoga, but would much rather come walking with me!
We had the nicest time. The weather was perfect; the spring flowers were in bloom. She brought her cute dogs, and we chatted as we looped around the neighborhood for an hour. It had been a long time since we really talked, so it was so nice to catch up. We both left feeling happy and uplifted.
The doubts and excuses could have prevented us from having that. They tried to disqualify the prompting by getting me to look through my limited (often foggy) lenses.
This isn't one of those stories where something major happened as a result of listening to and acting on an inspired prompting, like saving a person's life or changing the course of history. But it doesn't have to be. God cares about the big things, yes; He also cares about the little things (sparrows and lilies), like adding a bit of connection and joy to an otherwise ordinary Wednesday evening.
Inspired promptings/invitations flow in all the time. From now on, I'm going to do less disqualifying and just RSVP, "I'm in!"
Can't wait to see what this brings.
