Yesterday morning I sat in the hot tub on our back deck with my six year old son Jack. When you are six years old and less than four feet tall, the hot tub is the place to be. It's your own personal swimming pool. He climbed up onto my lap and snuggled up close. It was just the two of us. It was quiet. I decided to listen to whatever he had to say. The time is fleeting, and I know that in a year or two the stories he tells will not be nearly as entertaining or imaginative. Right now, they make me laugh. So, I listen.
He talked about absolutely nothing, nothing that would be important to you and me, but it was important to him. I heard about a tree cutting expedition in the woods behind our house, how he and daddy had cut a tree down and made a stump. With loud yells and arms flapping around, he told me how daddy had yelled, "Move! Move!" and that the tree had fallen down to the ground. "You can't see it," he said, "It's in the woods." Cutting a tree down was spectacular stuff to a boy who had never been part of such an exciting event.
I decided in that moment that listening to Jack's story was probably going to be the best thing I had done all day, and it was. From the outside looking in, it may have seemed as though I was wasting time. There were definitely lots of other "productive" things that I could have been doing ---laundry, dishes, picking up toys, all the things that mothers do a hundred times a day. I could have even been doing tasks that made me look or feel more spiritual, things that people in my life might look at, and they would be impressed. Wow. I do that all.the.time.. In a world where more is more, even in the church, how do we weed out the important stuff from the stuff that becomes distracting busyness?
Busyness---lively but meaningless activity.
I thought about the Children of Israel marching around Jericho ( Joshua 6 ) for seven days. I imagine the Israelites must have been pretty busy people, between taking care of their families and their religious obligations. (This is starting to sound very familiar.). There may have even been some complaining going on in the camp. "Why do I have to walk around the wall? I have laundry to do,
and I have to drag all these kids along with me. Why can't the priest and soldiers do it on their own?" The overtly religious probably sounded more like this, " Tomorrow is not a good day for me. I need time to make a sacrifice. Everyone is going to think I don't love God if I don't get to that sacrifice." The soldiers, more than likely, had their own opinions, too. "Is this what I've been training for, to walk around a wall? I want to do some real fighting."
Lucky for them, they listened to Joshua and did what God told them to do. They shut it down and got behind the Ark and simply walked. They weren't involved in "works", those things that make us feel good about ourselves and make others to feels good about us, too. As a matter of fact, what they were doing looked somewhat like idleness and made absolutely no sense to the people of Jericho. They didn't even bother to attack the Israelites as far as we know. Walking around Jericho didn't seem logical or impressive to those who were spectators. All the children of Israel knew was that they
were following God, both by faith and in a real literal sense. They were walking behind the Ark of the Covenant.
In the end, it was simple obedience and the hand of a mighty God that brought victory to the Isrealites. It was about Him, not the Israelites or what others perceived about the Israelites. In this case, they were able to see clearly what was most important and to lay aside all other busyness (including talking) to make an eternal impact on the world. How do we do the same?
1. Decide. Does it really have to be done? Sometimes our immediate answer to this is, "Yes." Our emotions tell us that things that aren't really that important are important. Stop. Take a breath, and logically think through what will really happen if you don't get that one thing checked off your list. Usually, unless it's something like paying the late electric bill, it will simply be there for you to do tomorrow. The opportunity to invest in someone may not be there tomorrow. We can only count on the present when it comes to the people around us.
2. Are you at peace with what you are doing? As children of God we have the Holy Spirit to guide
us and convict us. If we are getting that internal static every time we do a certain activity, we should probably look at it more closely to judge if it is inconsequential to the Kingdom and making us too busy to hear the Father. We can have a range of emotions about many things we do. Don't get me started on motherhood, but at the end of the day, there should be peace about what we are doing.
3. Does it have lasting value? There are some things that simply must be done, but priorities can be made by this question. We can decide what can wait a little longer and what should be carved out, seized, or sought after. Jesus does not care nearly as much about whether we have a clean floor or a large bank account as He does as to what we have done to bring honor to His name.
4. What are our motives? We know Jesus is about the eternal, but He is also about the internal. We need to ask ourselves why we are making the choices we are making with our time. There is always something going on internally when we choose to engage in any activity. So, are we doing it for the right reason, or are we secretly struggling with worry about not looking like a "good" Christian? Are
we teaching that Sunday School Class because we felt pressured into it? Do we, on some level, feel that we will gain favor with God if we just do enough? Does it build our ego up if someone is bragging on us? Our motivations can be telling.
Separating our deeds into a keep pile or a throw away pile can be difficult. It can take a little (or a whole lot) of bravery. It can mean that we risk being misunderstood by a world that doesn't seem to have the ability to slow down. However, it can also transform us from being busy for the Father into being beneficial for the Father.
Oh, by the way, one more thing about Jericho, Jericho is the city where Zacchaeus the tax collector sought out Jesus and where Jesus chose Zacchaeus. Guess what Zacchaeus was doing when he
encountered Jesus ? Just sitting in a Sycamore tree.
