“I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant. What better way than to be busy? The incredible hours, the crowded schedule, and the heavy demands on my time are proof to myself – and to all who will notice – that I am important.”
– Eugene Peterson
I am convinced that one of the most powerful reasons that most of us choose busyness over rest is that we think busy equals important. We choose chronic sleep-debt over any kind of right ordered peacefulness because our self-worth is tied to activity–our identity is wrapped up in what we do. I am what I do is a massive stumbling block to meaning.
Henri Nouwen’s short reflection on leadership pushes back on three ways that busyness and self-worth are connected. He names them as three temptations: 1) to be Relevant, 2) to be powerful, and 3) to be spectacular.
About the temptation to be RELEVANT, Nouwen has this to say:
“I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.”
I think you can remove the words “leader of the future” and it makes just as much sense. The Christian is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in the world with nothing to offer but one’s own vulnerability. We have no idea how difficult this is, or how counter-cultural it is.
By the way, that’s why we give something up for Lent – it teaches us to be vulnerable.
The temptation to be POWERFUL is related. Nouwen says,
“What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible… is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.”
Holy cow. Power/Control is the favorite culture substitute for the hard task of love. That stings.
There’s no better example of this than parenting. How will you lead your kids when you no longer hold all the power? Parents who only lead through size & position struggle like crazy when their kids become teenagers, because the parents never learned how to lead through their own vulnerability. Vulnerability is essential for love to exist. No vulnerability – no love. Leading through love is the way of Jesus. Leading through power is the way of the tempter.
That’s why we give something up for Lent. It trains us in powerlessness.
The third temptation is the temptation to be SPECTACULAR, which is huge in our culture. I think a key question of our time is: In a world where the spectacular is king, who will dare to do a small thing faithfully? Who will risk being faithful in obscurity? Who will dare to follow Jesus while nobody is watching?
That’s why we give up something for Lent. It teaches us to do a small thing faithfully.
During Lent we choose to give up a thing or two – what we give up is not that important; why we do is everything. Lent dares us to undergo life without one or two of our favorite pacifiers–things that don’t really nourish our souls. They just keep them quiet. In Lent we go without these things, and the soul starts to cry out, bearing witness to our need to be relevant, powerful, and spectacular.
Nothing is too small to give up because anything we give up will eventually point out to us the ways in which our soul so often turns to something other than God to get us through the day.
It’s not too late. Pick one thing. Give it up until Easter. If you are really brave, give up chronic busyness for the next three weeks… Allow this to show you the ways in which you are yielding to the temptations Jesus faced – to be relevant, to be powerful, to be spectacular. Allow it to teach you about the vulnerability that leads to love.
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