To be watchful, not vigilant ...

the monthly letter

“Watchful, not vigilant.”

The phrase dropped into my head in the shower a few weeks ago, as I was praying. Those two words are nearly interchangeable per Webster, but they each mean something different in my mind.

When I think of vigilance, I think about the early years following our adoptions. One of our children could seemingly hear conversations from two rooms away — this not a reflection of exceptional hearing, but of a lifestyle of vigilant insecurity — expectant in the hardest of ways. As if when they could know and see and anticipate loss, then maybe when it comes, it wouldn’t be so bad. Parentlessness develops its own skill set.

But that kind of vigilance isn’t exclusive to the once-orphaned.

Many of us have mastered it accidentally.

We read the facial expressions of our employers or read in between the lines of their emails, doing all sorts of gymnastics to win praise or dodge disapproval.

We know our spouse’s hot spots and tiptoe around them, vigilant to avoid the conflict.

We assess the new small group, the new church, or the new Bible Study for what they value — we exercise vigilant observation and subtly work to cohere to those things.

We speculate — over texts and intonations, invitations or the lack thereof — preparing ourselves to be not included, to be not needed … to be not wanted.

And my particular poison —the reason for my writing today and the potency of that God-dropped phrase into my mind?

Dread. I’ve known it since I was a young girl — I’m so familiar with it that I almost overlook the deepest layers of this specific form of vigilance…

A child shows early signs of sickness, and, unthinking, I am planning how our schedule will need to adjust for many days ahead to accommodate. A teenager struggles and I unconsciously anticipate how I’ll face a rift in our relationship ten years later as a result. The persistent headache, the drip underneath the sink, the downturn in the economy … they all have future implications in my mind, if not somehow fixed. And thus, I am subject to a future-world in my head that isn’t the reality in front of me.

But the thing about dread for us believers — it isn’t a mere placeholder, or something we should live with.

Dread occupies the same space where our God-given imagination was meant to reside.

In Ephesians, Paul prays this for the saints who are in Ephesus: “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:17-18).

In the Greek, this word “understanding” means imagination. Paul is praying that the ones like you and I would have our imagination set aflame with the hope of God and our inheritance in Him.

Paul is praying for their imagination.

But dread is the killjoy of our imagination. And vigilance is dread’s carrier through our minds and into our deep hearts.

So that night, as I prayed for God to restore and renew my mind, this new thought that dropped into my head felt much like an invitation: be watchful instead of vigilant.

You see, hyper-vigilance around any impending struggle or strife makes us single-sighted.

And it happened again today to me. A circumstance touched on my fear, and I started casing my surroundings — relationships, conversations, situations — to confirm this fear. In so doing, I missed the way Char’s hair formed ringlets on the crown of her head when it’s hot outside. (She’s the baby that shocked us — the one we thought would sink us but who has only made us younger, here in our forties.) I overlooked Virginia writing a new letter and I brushed through the kitchen too quickly to notice Lily painting in one room and Hope in another — two sets of brushes, two tracks of classical music, two styles of art. God was moving in the little minutes in my home, but my vigilance kept me from rest, from the watchful curiosity that distinguishes a daughter from an orphan.

Though the dictionary may make these two words interchangeable, I’ve known vigilance to require a lack of sleep, an ever-alertness, and a habitual stature of being on guard for every eventuality.

But to be watchful (to me) is to see.

To see with curiosity. To see with the trust of a child, watching the show and imagining a good ending. To see what we don’t know but what our heart craves. To be watchful is to have eyes open to God, all around me, always working.

I can watch God light the sky on fire at dusk and have a small part of my heart lifted (… and that sky fire will happen whether I see it or not).

I can see a teenager’s heart unfurl within a single phrase, dripping with vulnerability and openness to God and trust. (That phrase could’ve been background noise — heard by me, but not received as a sign of God’s work.)

I can see Nate holding a tender son, whispering in his ear of his delight and take it as commonplace (… or remember back to that gruff 24 year-old I married and marvel that God gave him much more than merely a salt-and-pepper beard in his second half of life).

I can slide my glasses on to read a text of encouragement from a friend that speaks to one of my biggest insecurities and then swipe right for the next task (… or I can watch that moment as if it was one God gave to reach me.)

God wants us to imagine a life where His power is potent, where we see Him in the sky fire, and our hearts are awakened, where relationships don’t just die in bitterness, where fathers and sons are restored to one another and marriages animate inside the glory of God. Yes, even in our suffering, sorrowful times — He wants us to imagine a life where we feel entrusted to God in our darkest hours (this last one, alone, is no minor miracle).

But first, we may need to choose a watchfulness that fosters godly imagination.

Rather — first, we may need to notice, name, and bring our vigilance and our dread before Him.

A question: consider one of your current, most challenging circumstances … with and before God. Have you imagined them playing out another way than your fear informs?

The answer may let you know if it’s now time to name, notice and bring your vigilance and/or your dread before Him.

Watchful, not vigilant: there’s just too much to see out there, friends.

{I write these letters each month, but in between those times I write a little more in-depth and a lot more candid over here. Next to writing in the pages of a book, it’s my favorite place to write.}

Until next month,

Sara