I Got Rhythm!

Les Ferguson Jr.・06/27/19

Photo by Paulo Evangelista on Unsplash

No one has ever accused me of having rhythm. I don’t sway in time with the beat very long before I am completely out of sync. I can’t clap along in a song without eventually becoming a distraction to others. 

I love singing and usually go around with a song in my head throughout the day. I remember lyrics like nobody’s business. I often wake up with music playing in my head. Granted, it’s most likely classic rock, but rhythm? I’m lucky to spell it correctly two times in a row (I’m thankful for spell check—that’s one thing my editors don’t have to worry with)!

Long ago (1930), the Gershwin Brothers, George and Ira, composed the words and the music for which Wikipedia tells me became a jazz standard: I Got Rhythm.Honestly? I know little to nothing about jazz. And while there is a tempo and progression to that style of music, it completely eludes me. Frankly, it bores me to tears.

And before you get all worked up about a perceived attack on your favorite kind of music, please understand I’m just using the song title to introduce what I lack in so many ways.

Rhythm?

I wrestle with keeping a work rhythm. I face a massive struggle to maintain some kind of rudimentary writing rhythm. I am hit and miss at being the husband, father, friend, and minister I should be. And heaven help me, having a rhythm that sees my creative ideas flow into quantitative, observable results? It’s like watching what I think, dream, or imagine slide off into a huge black hole never again to see the light of day!

But nowhere in my rhythm-less existence do I see the absence more detrimentally than in my spiritual life.

I have no idea how many Bible reading plans I have started over the years. Let’s use a teeny, tiny bit of hyperbole and say the number is astronomical… I have failed to complete most of them. I have also committed over and over again to specific times of personal prayer and devotion. Each recommittal recognizes a previous failure. I always have good intentions—I always want to grow closer to God and be that better husband, father, friend, and minister. But somehow, a proscribed routine always finds me lacking. 

The end result of all those failures finds me feeling like one. (I have always known those folks who seemed to make these kinds of rhythms look easy and if feeling like a failure could be turned up a notch, that’ll do it for sure). Not to mention the accumulation of guilt engendered by my numerous failures.

So, at this point it would be laughable for me to recommend a new plan, point you to a different kind of schedule, or somehow chide you for that which I lack.

But, if you are a fellow traveler on the struggling freeway of spiritual rhythms, I’ll tell you where I am and what I am doing… let me warn you, compared to those who seemingly have it altogether, I am a kindergartner surrounded by PhD candidates! My erstwhile flaws both betray and portray me…

What can I offer you? First of all, my transparency and the certain knowledge that you are not alone if this is your struggle too. Secondly, I am not going to give you another plan that we can both fail together in. And third, an introduction to an English author and blogger by the name of Sheridan Voysey. 

Understand, I’ve never met the guy. I don’t know everything he believes or even what tribe of Christianity he identifies with. But what I do know is he has given me hope that I can develop a greater spiritual rhythm without devolving into the frustration of failure.

In his blog article A Simple Rhythm for a Profound Spiritual Life, Voysey invokes Mark 3:13-15,

“Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” (NIV11)

In his words, “the call of Jesus is a call to a two-beat rhythm of life:

            Being withhim in prayer and devotion.

            Being sentfrom him into the world in action.”

He goes on to say, “being with, being sent—that’s Jesus’ rhythm of life.”[1]

I struggle to get up at the same time every day. When I do wake up, my head is often not in the game. Life gets in my way and whatever discipline I can muster is usually not enough. The best metric for my spiritual rhythm of life is found in the old African American Spiritual, “Give Me Jesus.”

In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus…

Yes, I want to do better at having a more dedicated prayer life. I’d like to be able to live my days around ordered times of scripture and devotion. But in my weak flesh, I’m going to strive to be with Jesus and go where he sends--that’s the spiritual rhythm I hope to live best! 

Somehow, I think we can do this together!

Les Ferguson, Jr.

Madison/ Oxford, MS

[1](https://sheridanvoysey.com/023-a-simple-rhythm-for-a-profound-spiritual-life/)