Busy for the Sake of Busy; or, Moving Rocks

As people get to know me, it’s not uncommon for them to point out that I’m an observer. I watch people. I watch things that happen, and I study people to guess at their motivation and intent.

I wish I could tell you why—I myself don’t particularly have any sort of motive or anything like that. It comes down to pure curiosity. I just like to know what makes people tick and why they do what they do.

A fascinating track of observation I’ve taken to recently is looking at the dichotomy between what makes people tick and how God designed us to tick. We’re so good at breaking God’s design for us that we could get a trophy if weren’t such a tragic story.

Take bowling, for example. People who are good at bowling really just have the ability to consistently knock things down. And when they knock a lot of things down ten times in a row, they get a trophy for it. What a world. Humans are a lot like that when it comes to God’s design for us. We’re great at knocking down His plans and trying to plant our own in their place. We often think we know better.

But there’s no trophy for novelty when it comes to the plan for our lives. We don’t get any bonus points for creativity in coming up with a more exciting plan than God’s. But all too often, rather than simply seeking him and doing what he wants us to do, we decide to stay busy for kingdom. We work and we work and we go and we go, hoping that we’re chasing a significant task.

But I find myself asking a single question constantly: “Is that what Jesus told you to do?”

I ask myself that question more than anything, but I often think about it as I observe others doing their work. Especially as I watch them struggle needlessly to work their fingers to the bone at some mundane task.

The problem is that we get so busy doing all the random things we think are significant, we never get around to stopping and thinking about what God’s design is. We never get around to meditating on Scripture and spending significant time in prayer like we should.

Now, hard work is valuable and I respect and appreciate those who work really hard—especially in industry and service jobs. My intent here isn’t to belittle those positions in any way; no, the work I’m talking about here is working to stay busy because in busyness you find your value, but I want to ask the question: is that what Jesus told you to do?

What Jesus Told You to Do

It’s too easy to find ourselves caught up in doing all the things that come across our plate. Every minute of every hour gets filled with a thing, and then we look at our full calendars and pat ourselves on the back because we’re indispensable.

But ultimately, that’s probably not true. Many of the things we spin our wheels on over and over could be completely removed or stopped and nobody would really notice. I’m sorry if that hurts or isn’t a great encouragement, but it’s true. And if that task or role could be eliminated without notice, it was never worth doing in the first place.

The reason we don’t find ourselves whisked away to heaven Enoch-style (or the far flashier Elijah method, if you’re more about showing off) is that we have a job to do while we’re here. We are still here on this earth to make an impact—and if we’re doing things that don’t have an impact, we’re wasting our time.

How can we look at all areas of your life and see what has an impact and what doesn’t? The honest truth is that much of what we do is simply meaningless, especially compared the Bible’s definition of productivity.

We work and work to stay relevant and valuable and memorable and we tell ourselves that because our schedules are full and we go to bed downright exhausted that we are productive. But what if I told you it doesn’t need to be that way? Make no mistake, we are called to work. And we are called to work hard. It’s part of our design as God’s image-bearers.

But what if I told you that our definition of indispensable, valuable, relevant and memorable work looks way different than what Jesus has prescribed in the Bible? In fact, Jesus said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. That sounds kinda nice, doesn’t it?

We have a mission in Christ. We have a divine calling to do his work. Is the work you’re toiling away at what Jesus told you to do or is it something that fills up some part of your identity that needs the affirmation? Too often, we make ourselves indispensable to our peers and wholly unavailable to God.

Wouldn’t you rather be available to the design God has purposed for you?

Moving Rocks

I love Greek mythology. I think the stories and interwoven tales are fascinating. When they’re not just super weird, I mean. Seriously, some of those Greeks had issues when they were coming up with that mythology.

Anyway.

One of my favorite stories to view in an allegorical light is that of Sisyphus. He was a crafty king. He was also a terrible person: greedy, deceitful and murderous. You know, the kind of guy you want to invite to a dinner party. Actually, that would have been a terrible idea. He was known for murdering visitors and palace guests just to flex his power as ruler.

So arrogant and repugnant was he, that he routinely challenged the gods. As the mythology goes, after cheating death a few times, he claimed to be able to outwit even Zeus, who of course was the ruler of all the gods.

As punishment, Zeus condemned Sisyphus to eternal torment. The crafty king was sentenced to rolling a boulder up the side of a steep mountain, only for it to roll back to the bottom once it came near the summit. Sisyphus was tasked with repeating this impossible endeavor over and over again for all of eternity. Never quite making anything useful of his time, being met with failure and grueling labor instead of crafty success.

The punishment for Sisyphus is uniformly considered awful. It sounds terrible. No one would willingly subject themselves to such fruitless daily tedium, right? Except we do something very similar as we make more busy work for ourselves to try and hunt for that elusive value. When we find our value in completing tedious tasks, we’re basically looking for ways to move rocks so that we prove our merit by how busy we are.

Instead, we ought to recognize how valuable we are to Jesus simply by the power of his grace and mercy. When our value is in the gospel, we can be freed up from the tedium of this world. We can see that the most valuable way to spend our time is completely immersed in the gospel of grace. What we do with our hands and feet will be the overflow of Christ pouring into us.

Doesn’t that sound way better than moving rocks?

There’s a lie we often trick ourselves into believing that for something to be valuable, it has to have an element of torture to it. Like lifting weights or dieting, the only true way to make progress is to endure a bit of discomfort first. And while that can be true in the context of stepping outside of your comfort zone or learning a new skill, when it comes to finding our value and worth, nothing could be further from the truth.

We can and should enjoy finding our value in Christ rather than mindless labor. This is a good thing.

And on the other hand, just because something is hard work doesn’t make it inherently valuable. Don’t believe that lie. Not every painful task is fruitful. There are plenty of unfruitful tasks we subject ourselves to daily, but why? Why waste our time on things that ultimately don’t bring about any lasting or fulfilling result? It’s a waste of our time and a waste of the resources God has given us.

Look at your day today and think about everything you’re doing. How many rocks are you moving?