Guarding our essential tasks from the invasion of busyness

sovereigngraceministries.org

One of the things that annoys me the most about myself is my inability to be consistent.  I really love to blog but my seminary studies, small group ministries (two that I am leading at the moment), my work at the fire department as well as at the ambulance corp (where I was recently granted the role of chaplain) and my own personal life occupy my time.  Blogging, the gym and sleep seem to the be the first three things to go.  The irony is that those three things help me feel the most focused and "centered."  Though there are more events and tasks stacking on my plate, blogging (like sleep and the gym) is good for me.  I simply need to do it.

I wonder why humans abandon the most essential tasks when the "going gets tough."  In years of doing ministry on college campuses and being a graduate student myself, I know that college students typically sacrifice sleep and healthy eating when workloads are high and stress levels are increased.  When the schedule gets incredibly tight and appointments pile up, fast food quickly replaces healthy eating and gym time is replaced by meeting preparation time.  Oftentimes, poor habits develop and even some dangerous methods of escapism begin.  Students do not sleep, are overly stressed and then drink alcohol in excess to feel relief and escape cognitive and emotional exhaustion.  Essential tasks are eliminated from the schedule, poor habits replace the essential tasks, and some turn to sinful and irresponsible behavior to mollify the consequences of eliminating essential tasks.  Anyone who has been involved in college ministry for more than a semester recognize this awful cycle, though sometimes I wonder if students use "escapism" as their scapegoat for their fleshly and sinful behavior.

This cycle is not limited to college students.  It applies to all of us in one way or another, but it is especially dangerous to Christians.  When Christians get busy, personal quiet time and Bible reading are usually the first things to be thrown out of the schedule.  When busyness invades, personal devotion to communion with God tends to retreat.  Even if the calendar is packed with ministry, we often too occupied with the business of God and not intimately drawn to the person of God.  Surely this does not apply to all, but after years of ministry I can say without hesitation that it applies to many.

I think I am one of the busiest people I know.  I know that there are people who are much busier than me and have much fuller plates than I do, but I am too busy to get to know them.  For me, genuine conversation with God is replaced with half effort "popcorn prayer" in the car on the way to work and Bible reading is replaced by seminary study (which is not the same thing).  Gym and sleep are almost entirely removed from my schedule and overeating becomes my sinful comfort of choice.  Blogging is a thought far from my mind and the phone calls and text messages of friends are usually ignored with the thought of calling them later.

In his book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis writes of a senior demon (Screwtape) who corresponds with a junior demon (Wormwood).  Screwtape is Wormwood's uncle and is coaching him how to afflict a person, particularly a churched person.  Screwtape refers to God as the "Enemy" and teaches Wormwood how to keep "his subject" far away from genuine intimacy with the enemy.  In the text below, C.S. Lewis describes what I am writing about with eloquence and wonderful execution:

"As long as they're volunteering anyway, an especially useful tactic is to keep them busy. Really busy. It's not hard to do, because they like to think the more work they do, the more spiritual they are. They help us out in this by using guilt to get others to volunteer, and some people will respond by volunteering without thinking it through. It's also easy for us because humans these days like to cram as many activities and responsibilities into their day as possible. Church staff and leaders are prone to super busyness because people will like them more if they get lots done. We're even more fortunate because humans are going through an economic downturn now, so they're often cutting back on staff but expecting the remaining staff to take on extra tasks. And all that rushing around to get everything done gives us lots of opportunities.

The busier they are, the more likely they will get tired and cranky with each other. We can have lots of fun when that happens. Keep them busy, and they don't take time to talk to each other. Even better, keep them too busy to listen to each other. We know things are going our way when other people become an interruption to them. Just keep reminding them that their tasks are much more important than people!

Keep them too busy to plan ahead. The less planning and prioritizing they do, the better. We're especially in good shape when they don't have time to evaluate what they're doing. If their work isn't effective, we don't have nearly as much to worry about.

When they're overly busy at church they often don't even notice that they aren't doing the other things the Enemy wants them to do, such as giving those physical bodies of theirs the rest, healthy food, and exercise it needs. If you work it right, you can even get them to neglect their family and their own time reading the Enemy's book because they're "too busy serving God." That's really fun to see! Keeping them serving at church can also help by keeping them away from people who are in our camp. We certainly don't want Christians influencing our people! 

Thanks, C.S. Lewis, for writing my blog for me.  You've told this true story with excellence.  Friends, we must fight to guard our "essential tasks."  We cannot allow Satan to occupy us with busyness at the expense of our spiritual health.

God still puts people in the belly of a whale

wwfblogs.org

I haven't blogged in quite some time.  It seems that every time I begin a blog, something happens that prevents me from blogging.  I become suddenly distracted or I encounter a stressful situation that leaves me with no desire to write.  Tonight, I fight through this to write in service to God.

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.'" Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV)

"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first." Matthew 19:29-30 (NIV)

Those verses used to excite me and now they trouble me.  In fact, there are a lot of things that used to excite me that now trouble me.  I used to see spray paint graffiti and skyscrapers and feel this passion in my heart for the inner city, where God is working miracles daily to the few laborers who choose to serve those who do not want to be served. Now I see expensive homes and nicely trimmed gardens and get excited.  I used to see the homeless and gang members and see ministry potential, but lately I've been regarding them as societal problems that a just and compassionate government can solve.  The very thing that I preach against is happening to me: the crisis of comfort.  And God was saying to me through the Bible that if I sought to be comfortable, I would be totally uncomfortable.

Jesus was so accurate when He told us that we must daily pick up our cross (Luke 9:23).  I think He put "daily" in there because of people like me.  I feel like I would pick up my cross until it led me to a three story home with a three car garage and then I would set up the cross as a lawn ornament.  God confronted my heart through His word not because I wanted security or comfort, but because I had forsaken Him as my source of comfort.  I realized that I was balancing my checkbook one too many times a week, looking at the overtime schedule too many days a week and planning for a future that I was not guaranteed.  It is not that planning and budgeting are sins.  The problem is that my plans are not obedience to God but a replacement of trust in God.  God wants us to pick up our cross, I wanted to hang a marble one.  The irony of it all is that the more I pursued comfort and the more I planned on how to be comfortable, the less comfortable I felt.  

Notice that Jesus tells those who want to be His disciple to pick up their crosses.  I think Satan has crafted a lie to the Church that we have embraced - that we can be believers without being disciples.  Somewhere, somehow, we started to believe that the call to discipleship is to elite and super holy Christians and the rest of us are simply believers to whom Christ's call to sacrifice does not apply.  We mix our idea of ministry with the comforts of this world, never truly knowing discipleship.  We embrace the American dream with a Christian twist and create a mixed lukewarm beverage of mediocrity and complacency with a dollop of "Bless this Lord" and hope for the best.  I think that mixed drink would taste awfully and I think that's why Jesus tells us that He will spit the lukewarm out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16).

I repented last night for placing my faith in comfort and not in God.  I have to forsake houses and fields for the sake of God's Kingdom.  I do not want to be lukewarm and I do not want to be spit out.  Yet even as I write this blog, my flesh resists its message.  "Maybe I'm called to live among this social group to do ministry" or "Surely, God has prosperity for my life."  And then I think, "God doesn't want me to do something that I don't want to do.  He would give me a desire to do something if He planned for me to do it."  I have to recognize that those are not thoughts from Jesus.  How do I know?  Because God put a guy named Jonah in the stomach of a big fish until he finally decided to listen to God to go to a different social group where he would not be prosperous.  Whales don't go around swallowing folk anymore, but if we look at our lives through the lens of Jesus we might see our own version of a whale.  We might find that our jobs, our inability to have success in relationships, our financial struggles, our inability to move forward in our lives and so on are actually the answers to our prayers.  And God keeps us in these whales until we say, "Here I am, Lord, send me.  I'll pick up my cross daily and follow you."

My hope is that I will be spit out of a whale and not by Jesus.  True story.