The Invitation to Linger
Gently holding what was and what will be
What does your day after Christmas look like? Does it hold wrapping paper still strewn on the floor? Maybe you’re digging through the trash for the gift card that accidentally was tossed or standing in the return line at Target. Perhaps your day holds more cleaning as family members plan to still gather or maybe your everyday work commute. Does it hold kids who are whining and over-sugared?
Whatever your day holds, I want to invite you to ponder what lingering with God may mean for you today.
The week in between Christmas and our exclamations of “Happy New Year!” can be an awkward one—the holidays have come and gone, yet they’re still also here. The Christmas music will start letting up on the radio and talk will shift to what we’re looking forward to in the New Year. It’s another reminder of the cyclical pattern of change we hold in our lives. What if we slowed down a little bit more during this week—in the middle of what was in 2024 and what will be in 2025—to linger in the presence of God just a little more?
We are a fast moving culture—we move on from one holiday to the next and one task to another. We scroll fast, we text fast, we talk fast and we eat fast. I’m amazed by how hurry is normalized in our day and age today.
Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life… There is nothing else. - Dallas Willard
Lingering is a slower pace of life that is countercultural, uncomfortable, and seen as pointless because we’re not producing anything to the outside world. We don’t just happen upon lingering as we hurry through our day. To linger has to be a choice and an intentional way of life. We are invited to slow our bodies, hearts, and minds to sit with God in the here and now.
Lingering feels awkward.
Lingering feels unproductive.
Lingering feels too slow.
Lingering feels too vulnerable.
What would it look like for you, as we close out one year and open our hands to a new one, to slow down and linger with Jesus?
What are the invitations to “linger with Jesus” as we sit in the awkward in-between week? Just a note, these also don’t have to be deeply spiritual in nature, they are just little invitations to notice the Divine in our everyday lives. Lingering with God could mean (but is certainly not limited to):
Sitting in the quiet morning hours as you gaze at the Christmas tree lights before they’re packed up and put in the attic.
Reflecting with God on this past year asking—where was I drawn closer to your heart? Where did I resist your love?
Holding your child just a few seconds longer.
Tasting holiday food, noticing the flavors and holding gratefulness for the hands that prepared it.
Slowly walking in the early morning snow, noticing how the quiet feels in your body.
Naming various griefs and joys that you walked through in 2024.
Naming the hopes you hold for 2025.
Putting the phone down and looking deeply into the eyes of the person talking to you—you are both image bearers of the Holy One.
What if instead of focusing on producing what the world can see, we ask God what He is forming in our hearts right now?
May we hold kindness for ourselves as we enter into a new year and new rhythms.
May we look at ourselves and those we encounter today as bearers of our Lord’s light.
May we linger in the good and hard—knowing all are held in the hands of God.
May we name what’s important to us and let everything else gently fall away.
May we be present with ourselves and others as God is present with us.
May we hold the invitation to walk slower in this life, noticing the presence of God weaved into the sinews of our life.
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Great reminder!
Beautiful reminder. Naming just what we have done this week when God gifted us with a sick kid that drastically changed our Christmas plans, but also gave space to just be, to linger.