4 minute read
Probably like you, the activities I participate in throughout my waking hours can fall into one of two categories: input and output.
Input is everything I cram into my brain.
Podcasts.
News.
Books and articles for work.
Books and articles for entertainment.
Books and articles to help me learn to live like Jesus.
TV shows.
Movies.
Songs.
Art.
Emails.
Texts.
Things people I’m talking to say.
Social media I consume.
Blog posts.
Input is everything I take in.
Output is everything that I make.
Texts.
Emails.
Stuff I write out in my journal.
Things I say to people I’m talking to.
PowerPoint presentations.
Stories I’m making up.
Notes.
Reports.
Social media I produce.
Blog posts.
Output is everything I put out.
Every day, I’m either in input mode or output mode. I basically have only two settings. In or out.
Now, oftentimes I have to toggle back and forth between these modes—like when talking to someone in person, or over text, or fast-flying email chains, or when I’m in a hurry and jostling back and forth between tasks.
Input… or output.
A few years back I was on a work trip. It was a fast and furious trip. In the Uber ride to the airport, I was creating output: work emails, texts to friends, making plans for my trip. In the airport, I did more work, creating a PowerPoint presentation for a client. Then, on the plane, I went into input mode. I watched something on my iPad and listened to a podcast and read some of a book.
The whole trip went like this. At a client meeting? Lots of input from them with lots of output from me like notes and plans and my advice. At dinner (eating alone on the road is a real blast), I read on my iPad and watched some YouTube videos.
Back at my hotel room, more output as I wrote more emails and agendas and reports.
Finally, in an effort to wind down, I scrolled through Netflix hoping to find something (anything) to watch so I could just slow down. Entertainment input mode. I looked and looked and looked and nothing struck my fancy and I was getting a bit perturbed because I needed to find something to watch and I wasn’t finding anything to watch and I needed to rest and—
I suddenly said a quick little prayer like, “God, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Am I supposed to be working on something in particular? Or watching something? Am I supposed to be praying? Reading the Bible? Writing in my journal? Can you help me?”
And… just then, I felt like God say something to me. It wasn’t as weird as that may sound… but I felt Him communicate something to me.
In that moment, I felt Him say, “No-put.”
“No-put.”
He wasn’t telling me to output something. And He wasn’t telling me to input something. He was telling me to… “no-put.”
Don’t… do… anything.
I didn’t know what to do with that. “What? So, I’m just supposed to stare at the curtains for five minutes?”
And I felt God tell me, more or less, “Yeah. Pretty much.”
What God was wanting for me in that moment wasn’t more doing… or more taking in… it was… just… being.
Just… sitting there.
Not even really praying.
Just building in a long… moment… of pause… and rest.
So I tried it. I stared out the window for five minutes.
And… it was hard.
Really hard.
I don’t know about you, but I’m addicted to communication and putting out fires and trying to make things and trying to take things in… and not doing any of that… not looking at my phone, not watching something, not creating something… was hard.
It was like my body and brain didn’t have a mode for that.
That’s because, for years, I’d only thought there were two “puts”: input and output.
But maybe there was a third put.
Maybe there was no-put.
And maybe I need no-put.
*****
Lately, I’ve been anxious. Really, really anxious. Work and commitments I’ve made have really caught up with me lately. And, honestly, they’ve been getting the best of me.
And in this season, I’ve found little, tiny times of no-put to be my favorite times of my day.
I don’t have the luxury of blocking out 30 minutes of no-put time…
But I have been building in five-minute chunks here and there right in the middle of my workday when I turn away from my computer and my phone (devices designed for efficient input and output) and turn toward the window and just… stare… out.
I hardly even pray in those moments.
I just… rest.
And breathe.
And let God calm me down.
It’s like a little moment of sabbath, right there in my day.
And in those moments—those quiet, no-put moments—I sense God.
I sense Him reminding me of who He is… who I am… what I’m called to… and what I’m not called to.
It’s not input… it’s just more of God’s hand of love placed upon my heart.
And boy do I need it.
Do you?
******
What would it look like if you just stopped some time in the middle of your day and went into no-put mode? Would it be hard? Would it feel awkward? Would it be scary?
But would it—could it—also be valuable? And soothing? And calming? And just what you might need to sense God and His good, kind, powerful, loving presence?