It seems that all I have been hearing about lately is Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of good and evil, realized they were naked and clothed themselves. I started getting beyond bored with this story (one, might I add, that I have known my whole 18 lengthy years) because it seemed like it is all I have been hearing for the last two months and I thought the cause of it being told so much was just unoriginality of people telling it. But, in hindsight, that’s not the case (I mean when is that every really the case, though?). I finally realized, after the fourth time of hearing from this chapter, that it was God trying to tell me something: my own loincloths.
I am busy. All the time. I usually leave my house at 7 a.m. and don’t get back home until about 10:30 p.m. on the weekdays, and my house is lucky to be touched by my feet on the weekends. While working and trying to fundraise for the race, maintain decent grades and attendance at school (which are both so hard being the last quarter of senior year), and keep up intentional relationships, I don’t have time for much else and I liked it that way. I like being busy because I don’t have to think about the real struggles of family, friends, and everything else of this world. I use being immersed in activities as a loincloth to hide shame I feel, being too busy to think about it. I use being completely occupied as an excuse because I fear what people will think if I decline or as an excuse for my complete exhaustion when I give only half my attention when I overcommit (talk about FOMO). I glorified busyness because I thought it would make my life seem exciting to the people watching.
In Matthew 23, Jesus goes to Jerusalem to find the Pharisees worshipping pride, a god that seemed religious and upright. These Pharisees thought nothing wrong of this god, but in verse 27, Jesus compares it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” Like in Matthew 23, it doesn’t seem like a bad thing, never being home and always being on the go, fast-paced, but I felt dead like the men’s bones. I felt like the world was on my shoulders, heavy-burdened, weak and wearied.
This busyness was not giving me the fulfillment that I get from Jesus nor the joy from following Him. I didn’t think anything of this being worshipped in my life, but in this chapter the men had god that seemed religious and upright, but it wasn’t. None of the things I am doing are bad, working hard and trying to have fruitful relationships, but when I am putting them first, above God, then that is where I am choosing this world over Eternity, and running from it.
Oswald Chambers puts it best: “We run ahead of Him in a thousand and one activities, becoming so burdened with people and problems that we don’t worship God, and we fail to intercede. If a burden and its resulting pressure come upon us while we are not in an attitude of worship, it will only produce a hardness toward God and despair in our own souls.” I have felt so burdened by trying to live this fast-paced life of always doing something and always being preoccupied, like I can never be doing enough, but leaving no time for worship has created a hardness in me and my relationships. I was trying to run ahead of God, not giving my time to the Time-Maker, and take on all this stuff by myself and on my own time.
But Jesus still died for us. Despite our whitewashed tombs, no matter how obvious, the perfect Lamb came to be sin for us, to enter in. He enters into our hearts, no matter the mess and disorder. He calls us to slow down and to be still. He has me wide-eyed focused on Him and His glory. I am still busy, still on-the-go with my pace fast, but it’s not the same. He’s made my spirit slower and fuller. Peace has become amplified and worship has regained its rightful place.
Jesus, you are constant when my life is not. Your soft and tender love still remains, even when my heart is hardened. You still run after me when I try to run ahead of You. You came to me, with your burden light and your yoke easy, exactly where I was, when I was tired of running. Thank you for still offering me Eternity even after knowing my deepest depravity and the depths of my heart. I’m all yours!
