Maybe it’s because it’s January.  You’ve got all the hype and brightness of Christmas, and then, you’re dragged mercilessly into the gloomy drudge of getting up in the dark, being busy with whatever duties you have day in, day out, and then coming home in the dark, passing an evening feeling wrecked and talking about feeling wrecked, and then it’s bed-time.  Next day, it starts all over again.

Last week I had that day I’m sure most of us have, where I think about what would happen if I just stayed in bed.  Sadly, many things would not have happened if I’d done that, and many other even more unwelcome problems would have occurred.  So, as usual, I got up, dressed my daughter who mostly refuses her daddy, and screams for me (irksome for me, convenient for him), and faced the battle of the school run.  Everyone looks harried and cross.  There’s this one group of particularly formidable mothers who march along the footpath, giving off loudly about anyone (including me) whose car is blocking their two buggies’ width march to the school gates.  When I got out of the car that day, I heard one saying at the top of her voice “I know, it’s so annoying, isn’t it?”  She looked daggers over her shoulder at me, defiant.  I tell you, if I was a more bolshie person, I’d have turned her round and given her what for.

You see?  This is what the daily grind does.  It creates monsters.  We all keep our eyes down, find everything irritating, and any interruptions to our own particular treadmills absolutely intolerable.  There has to be another way.

I don’t really have the solution for this universal syndrome, but am close to understanding the people who have sought the wrong ones.  The ones that ultimately make everything worse.   The only thing that I have, is this:  wake up, and invite Jesus into your day.  If He says He came that we might have life to the full, then there’s something to be sought after.  The days when I remember to do that are still hard work of course.  They’re the same, but remarkably different too.