Does a fish notice the water?
I suspect he lives and moves and breathes in it his whole existence, never thinking about what is surrounding him and flowing through him.
Do we notice how culture affects us? Maybe not any more than the fish notices water.
It’s easy to go back in time to Bible days and clearly see how the world’s influence seeped into the church. You Corinthians, get a grip! It’s not okay to sleep with your step-mom! You Galatians, don’t you get that it’s not about keeping the law?
It’s a little harder to see how our own societal norms affect us continually. We live and move and breathe, daily, in the paradigms that surround us. One of the most influential mindsets of our day – yet perhaps the most subtle — is the utilitarian mentality that started during the time of the Industrial revolution.
We’ve come to buy the lie that man is a machine, that productivity is everything, that the biggest sin we can commit is failure to produce and perform.
Has that one crept into the church? You bet it has. The old adage “cleanliness is next to godliness” is replaced with the notion “busyness is next to godliness.” The constant pressure to be involved in multiple ministries and fill our calendar with programmed activities leaves us exhausted, wondering what in the world Jesus meant by abundant life.
Surely there must be more to it than running from one activity to the next, checking off lists and getting stuff done?
Busyness is the cultural ocean we swim in today. It feels normal, but unlike the fish and water analogy, it’s not. Human beings were created with certain biological rhythms in place.
We aren’t machines, and we don’t function at our best when treated like one.
Think of some of the best memories of your life. How many of them were on your to-do list for the day? Did you cross them off and say, There, I got that done?
That’s why I’m all for wastefulness. Today I “wasted” time swinging my grandson at the park and giggling with him. I wiled away precious moments inhaling the fragrance of dark purple lilacs and blowing shiny soap bubbles. I inspected a new robin’s nest. I stuck bare feet into cool grass.
None of this created a product, or streamlined my efficiency, or even got crossed off a list. From a utilitarian standpoint, I was just wasting time.
Or was I?
In Him we live and move and have our being, quotes the Apostle Paul as he explains God to the men of Athens in Acts chapter 17.
When we allow God to uphold us, when we breathe Him in, when we are more conscious of Him than the clock, the calendar, and the to-do list, we are truly alive. We are human.
We are functioning as His image-bearers were meant to.
May I encourage you to throw off the tyranny of the gotta-do’s, and waste some time? It will never be better spent.
