A lot of people ask me how I get my schoolwork done.
I don't know. I shrug. There's no trick to it, only that I find satisfaction in the done, in the checking off the task, in the putting down the pen and shutting the laptop and unplugging the guitar.
And I find that's how I get through life. Day by day. Hour by hour. Assignment by assignment. Ticking off my little checkmarks.
Sure, I can accomplish a lot.
But I also miss a lot in the process.
One of my favorite quotes by John Steinbeck reads, "I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen."
Because that's me. Caught up in the task, so intent on pursuing the done and the finished and the completed that I never enjoy the pursuit or the process or the people. So self-absorbed that I miss the people in my life who make my tasks possible. In my selfishness, I forget that I'm not the only one on this planet. That this life is not about me, but the One who made and died for me.
And I think about the pastors I met in the Philippines. I think about their service with such open-hearted self-abandonment and how they gave up their careers and jobs and goals in life for the dirtiest, the poorest, the neediest.
They saw people.
They put down their books and phones and jobs and money and decided to give. To serve. To love.
And that is what I'm missing. That heartfelt dedication comprised of sacrifice, of realizing the importance of others above ourselves.
Isn't that how Christ lived? In complete self-abandonment, with a heart and mind focused on people. He had God's will in mind, yet lived in complete self-denial. In Matthew 14, Jesus withdrew from the people to a desolate place, probably to pray and spend time with His Heavenly Father. Yet, even then, a great crowd gathered when He went ashore. Instead of sticking to His to-do list, instead of doing what He set out to do, Christ abandoned His plan, had compassion on the crowd, and and healed the sick and loved the lost and held the children.
If even Jesus, God Himself, gave up His own plans for the sake of others, how much more so are we, as His disciples, supposed to sacrifice our own agendas to love and serve those around us?
And in America, in this busy society where everything is a blur and time never stands still because there is always one more thing to be done, always one more thing on our to-do list, do we ever truly see? Do we ever take a moment off of our busy selves and our packed schedules to see the people? To appreciate those who love us and pray for the unreached and the missionaries and the church and our families and do we thank those who are never thanked or talk to those who don't have anyone to talk to?
Because more and more, the Lord's convicting me of my task-oriented heart, how I care more about getting things done than about knowing and loving and serving those around me. How I only see myself and my own goals in life rather than others.
James 1:27 reads, “Pure
and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit
orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the
world.” Not to finish reading the Bible ten times or memorize the entire Westminster Catechism or donate X amount of money. Not about checking things off a list, but about caring for people. Things, not people. And the second most important commandment is about loving our neighbors as ourselves. Again, not things, but people.
Because the truth is sometimes tasks and to-do lists are easier to love than people. People mess up and betray our trust and friendships get messy and relationships may fail. And it takes a lot to be able to trust and accept and love, despite knowing that things may get real and it might not be comfortable or nice or pretty to love our neighbor. Things are easier to control. It's easy to sit down, finish X amount of math problems, be done with it. That's in our control. But people aren't.
And I think God understood this. He understood that it's easy for all of us to become self-absorbed in our tasks and love things because that's within our comfort zone and it's safe.
It's so easy for us to be selfish but so hard for us to be sacrificial.
Yet that's what Christ called us to do. To give up and reach out, to love the people around us as He Himself did. To be willing to sacrifice our own agenda for the sake of others.
For if we are called to live like Christ, if our actions should follow after our Creator, then that's our calling isn't it?
To love even when we don't feel like it.
To love even when we have other things we want to get done.
To put others first.
So let's lose ourselves today in the pursuit of loving others. Let's lose ourselves today that we might abandon our self-love and encourage those around us, for we were called to be fishers of men.
"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 10:39
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