Doing Something or Nothing?
From the outside I must appear lazy or flighty or to a fellow traveler, maybe adventurous? Because we sit in random homes, or in our home on wheels, and often times without so much as a neighbor to even say, "Hello." The rest of the world is busy, busy doing something, lots of things. I know this because everyone says, "Sorry I'm running around crazy busy right now." Or something to that effect. We, on the other hand, cram into our camper with boys twice as big as they were when we left almost three years ago. Attitudes, arguments, and hormonal angst make even "fun" activities laborious. We have seen much of the land we are now residing in, so the adventure seems less than adventurous.
The frustration hits hard in transitions. I'm not angry at employees or deadlines or fellow parents yelling at my kids' lack of scoring in the big game. I'm not even angry at my own kids. I'm just frustrated with myself. What am I doing? How am I making the most of these days I have left on Earth? I open the word and cry out to God because He always answers me. He's never too busy for me.
"Then they asked him, 'What must we do to do the works God requires?'" (John 6:28) YES! That's what I want to know Lord. Should we be doing something different with all the time you have given us these last few years? Will we get along better if we have a business, a ministry, or a specific calling? What can I be doing for you Lord? I'm ready. Here I am, send us.
I was strangely disappointed to find the answer to my question in the next line "Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: [Here it is!! The answer!] to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29) WHAT? That's too simple. I already believe. So what do I do now? Where is the transitive verb for DOING?
Then it hit me harder than the frustration did. This work involves real intimacy. Like Job's friends just sitting with their hurting brother, not saying a word, not trying to fix it. Just being together. This takes real faith. To walk day in and day out seeking God's heart for every matter without patting yourself on the back, without getting others to acknowledge what your doing, and without getting a quick, comfortable, easy answer. That's a quiet, intimate work that many never get a chance to do because they are too busy. My eyes opened to the work that is happening right in front of me. God gains the glory instead of me. If I had a business, a ministry or a calling three years ago, I would have patted myself on the back for how great my service was to the Lord.
Still I know that God doesn't call us to sit around lazily either. Once His disciples sat and waited for the Holy Spirit when they probably wanted to get to the "doing" of disciple-making. They received intimate communion through God's indwelling Spirit, and then they were ready to make disciples. Likewise, there was a man called Naaman who had to get over himself and wash in dirty water, then he was ready to intimately share in the great work of God. Or take Moses. He needed forty years in a foreign land before God was ready to reveal His calling, and even then he still hesitated and made excuses. But if we jump ahead of God and try to do things before His time, we make things more complicated and painful for ourselves.
We in the western world "do" things. We make life happen with convenience and perceived control. As such, if we are not doing something that we can calculate then we must be doing nothing of any value. I am learning intimacy with God and with my family. I am learning to "make disciples" of my children. These are not easy tasks that I would always choose. It would be far easier to disciple a young woman who lovingly enjoys hearing what I have to say. The four young men under my tutelage right now apparently already know everything I'm going to say and frankly would rather not hear it. I forget that our callings are never supposed to be easy. They are supposed to refine us while drawing us into deeper intimacy with God. We are so scared of intimacy that requires vulnerable dependency. We all love independence after all. This is why we see little value in those who are at the beginning or end of life. They aren't "doing" much.
In a culture of "do" whatever feels good and "do" what produces the most good, we keep busy by doing busy things. My life feels less busy these days, but more uncomfortable, more uncontrollable, more unpredictable. As such, I must choose to walk in the hairy hard of nothing, knowing that I am actually doing what Jesus requires. I am waiting and working by faith gaining fearlessness to let Him change me in the process. I know that before long, my circumstances will also change, and then I'll be doing something different that I wasn't ready for without this "doing nothing" time.
~Doing Nothing Carefully & Carelessly
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