Elements of Transformation - Busyness makes us blind and deaf

One of the most pervasive characteristics of our culture is the way we elevate our busyness. It is not uncommon in conversations with those from other companies or churches or ministries to throw in a few "humble brags" about how busy we are...I find myself falling to not that trap... oh, I'm "trying to keep up." Our culture puts an unusual premium on busyness and we elevate in our esteem, those who we perceive to be the busier ones among us.

Now certainly there is no virtue in laziness.Paul instructs Timothy, "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."   and certainly we put great stock in teaching that we must work with all our energy for the things of the Kingdom. However, it is not difficult to make the case that the noise and adrenalin of our busyness has made us addicted to the point that we are in danger of becoming blind and deaf.  Blind and deaf because we become insulated against anything from the outside that does not fit into the grid or our busyness.

This happens at many levels, but I speak especially of what happens in good Christian ministry. Our busyness becomes a machine, and we find ourselves continually maintaining the "machine" of our ministry, or our ideology, and we can no longer understand how God could do something other than the way WE are doing it. If something comes along that "may" truly be of God, we may listen for a while, but we are soon drawn back to maintaining the machine. It is unthinkable to us to turn off the machine and contemplate some other direction, some other "methodology," some other concept other than what we have clung to in order to keep our machine running.

I believe that is why we see so little of what I would call true "Presence Based Transformation" in the West, and in our country especially. For over a decade, God has been giving us example after example of what He is doing when people forsake all to pursue Him, but we don't see how it can fit into our machine, so it remains a nice, maybe even challenging example, but our mindset is, it can't work here, because it does not fit into our "machinery." 

 It is so hard to break free of the ways that we have always done things. It is hard for us to STOP and take time to listen until we really hear. I look around, and there are places of hope... but the vast majority of us are too busy and too occupied to hear when He whispers, or when He quietly slips in the door, waits for us to respond, and then moves on because we are just too busy.

Transformation will not come until we let go of those things, and learn to listen for His instructions, His voice, His presence.