Being Rather than Doing.

Manning eloquently stated, “We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift. “It we but turn to God,” said St.Augustine, “that itself is a gift of God.” My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”

 In our Americanized framework of thinking, being task-oriented is the blood that runs through our being. It fuels our passions and paves the way for our ‘goals’ to be accomplished. It is the mile-marker that gets us to where we desire to go. This often times flows easily into our Christian approach to life: that in order to be present, to be engaged in communion with God that we must do for him- Yet, the downfall comes when our task-oriented mentality blinds us from being with God.  However, being task-oriented is also a strength of America, allowing the ability to be focused and to be diligent in accomplishing great tasks.  Pursuing goals and making marks to accomplish them is not the problem. Where the issue lies, is when those ‘goals’ and those ‘marks’ blind us from the root of where those passions came from in the first place. If being with God is not the foremost then our doing for God will be in great vain. As a Christ-follower, we often use words like grace and purpose within the speech of our daily monologue. We have never been challenged as deeply are we are in this context--where what brought us here was a great task, of building a Vapor Sports Center. What happened over these past few weeks was that we became so consumed with the many ‘marks’ to get us there, that we were blinded in being with the One who brought us here in the first place. God has allowed a bump, a pot hole if you will, to stop our task-oriented strive and reposition our path to be centered on His fueling. There have been days where God has said, put the project down for today. I need you to be relational with others and to be in communion with me. From our framework, our world lens is almost viewed through timelines and deadlines. But, in God’s lens, He sees the needs before Him and the compassion He wants to show others through us. We are not able to see that lens, if we are not centered on being with God. If our tasks of 'ministry' and 'helping others' become more consuming, then we will forfeit the love of Christ to pour through us. 

Zacharius stated, “Faith is a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness, drowning in the currents and drifting further into nothingness.” If we are not positioned in being in Christ, rather than doing for Him then will drift further out into ‘nothingness.’ We are only sufficient through the grace given to us, freely, through Christ. May we find our times with Him as the communion we need to extend our time, our efforts, and our resources to others.