Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Doing Things Isn't Enough

“Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy--fully armed too, as it's a highly dangerous quest.” –Flannery O’Connor

I remember distinctly one night when I was about eight years old. Reading the verse, “Thou shalt not commit false witness against thy neighbor,” it hit me. For the past several millennia, everyone had been reading that verse wrong. “Dad! Guess what I found! The Bible doesn’t actually say we can’t lie. It just says we can’t testify wrongly against our neighbors.” The verse really didn’t apply unless you were in court.

After a conversation with my Dad, my interpretation faced some much-needed adjustments. So I didn’t stumble upon a monumental loophole in the Ten Commandments. Ten years later, I freely admit, lying is wrong because the Bible tells me so.

Unfortunately, my tendency to misunderstand truth didn’t end that day. I’m finding that it’s human nature to twist and pervert truths, either until the truths are softened to a point of becoming meaningless, or until they become rigidly legalistic.



The Pharisees Must’ve Had Dandy Checklists, Too


One such truth that I commonly see distorted is the necessity of doing things for God. “Don’t waste your life” has become a mantra reminding me to stick to my “To-Do” list. It’s true—good things come to those who don’t slack off. Diligence is commendable, and so is service; but clinging desperately to accomplishments to justify our existence is a misunderstanding of service altogether. That is twisting the original meaning of diligence into the idea that our life’s purpose is to complete a checklist of ambitious goals.

To take this even a step further, I propose that we are absolutely guaranteed to waste our lives if we live solely with the goal of accomplishing things. Yep, you read that right. If you learn Chinese before the age of twenty, move to China by age twenty-one, and become a full-time missionary in record time, what of it? Why would that matter at all? If you learn how to cook gourmet dinners with whole foods, graduate from with honors and start your own business, what would you have accomplished?

The accomplishments themselves are empty. They’re useless, and what’s more—they’re a waste of time and energy. That is, unless those actions are propelled forward by something deeper. It is as Sören Kierkegaard wrote, “Father in heaven! What is a man without Thee! ....What is all his striving, could it even encompass a world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee: Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all!”

Life isn’t all striving. It’s more a frenzy of joy found in adoring the God we were born to love. Yes, we’re to serve Him, but out of the sheer love of it—not to accomplish a legalistic set of expectations we set for ourselves.

Case in Point

The other day, I felt under the weather. Although I awoke with a mental list of tasks to complete, I was able to only finish the bare minimum. Was my day wasted? On the surface it was; and I was discouraged at the apparent waste of time. But why would God allow me to feel sick if it kept me from doing things that glorify Him? Unless--there is more to glorifying God than bare obedience.

Paul Tripp explained that the Christian life is more than a set of guidelines: "[L]ife in the kingdom is not so much about pursuing a thing; it is about pursuing a person. It is about having the eyes of my heart focused on Christ. It is about a soul filled with appreciation and brimming with affection. It is walking around astounded that he would place his affection on me and even received my flawed love. It is living with the hope that someday we will no longer be separated..."

The most accurate depiction of the Christian life, I think, is not someone who accomplishes great things for God but someone who lives each moment in order to more deeply love Him. Aspiring to serve God is fine and dandy, but should the success of my day be defined by my surface-level "accomplishments?" I don't think so. Only when I realized that God wants more than filled out checklists, but instead hearts that stalk His Presence, did my day begin to make sense.