wherever you ask it to be it follows sometimes it even takes the lead you invite it comes you push it away it stays- in the shadows disguising itself as “good intentions” “justified actions” “hard-working effort” but never the truth it doesn’t ask you if it is overstaying its stay or if it should come only from 8-5 quit is never something it will acknowledge when you aren’t watching it suffocates you slowly gradually taking an extra step closer to you close enough to take you under into the unconscious even while you sleep it treats- you like you are a thing not a being you are the towel it chooses to ring it dries you out then dips you in your so deep swimming would be frivolous don’t you see? it doesn’t care about you really all it cares about is that you stay exactly how it wants you to busy
Over the past couple of months, my eyes have seen something strange. Everywhere I go I see people drowning…but no one is reacting. It’s an epidemic that garners no response whatsoever. I mean not even a second glance. I really don’t think people would even call it a sickness, but it is spreading like wildfire all over the place. It is diagnosed as busyness, but treated like it is supposed be what life is made of. And so everyone goes on doing anything and everything .
Mom, can you cook dinner, drive me to soccer, clean my sheets, mop the kitchen, and cover my textbook expenses? Sister, can you take me to school, run the dance team, organize a party, sing at the concert, and get straight A’s? Dad it’s time for you to pay all the bills, rearrange the living room, mow the lawn, lead a men’s group, and iron these shirts.
And we ask each other these things with a “pretty please” at the end and most people respond with, “Yes. I can do that.”
And so we do. “We do what we don’t want to do and what we want to do we don’t do.” Paul, one of Jesus’ apostles, said those exact words in Romans 7:15. He was talking about sin and how crazy it can make our lives. Our actions become distorted and we go on all sorts of paths searching for true meaning and life.
Because of that, all that we end up doing gives us only a percentage of an ounce of a fraction of a decimal of time to reflect and observe what is actually going on. Our time is spent in the doing and not the reflecting. So in many ways, we don’t ever realize we live in a mess because we never take a breath out of the water. If we could just take that breath, then we would be able to look out over the waves and see the sun.
We just swim endlessly and aimlessly through life. I’m not quite sure we even know there is a sun. Our heads are too submerged to feel its heat. Our eyes are too downcast to see its light. Our hands are too busy to reach out of the water and bask in the sun’s rays.
We can only do so much before it becomes too much. Then, as we have all seen it before, we start to become frustrated, anxious, and stressed out. These byproducts have become commonplace to us. It is no longer a fight against the stress, but a fight against the doctor who won’t prescribe the drug we think we need to suppress the stress. What do we really need to be fighting though?
If we fight each other, we get nowhere. So then what do we fight? Or what do we fight for? We have to fight to regain freedom. A freedom that would come easy if we didn’t lock ourselves into chains of to-do lists.
What do you spend your time doing?
Each one of us has specific things that we choose to tie ourselves down to. We can see that we are held back and feeling a little bit crazy, but we never really want to unlock the chains. They get kind of comfortable and numb us into thinking it is just the way life is supposed to be.
But it’s not. I know it’s not…because seeing someone drowning has never been regarded as commonplace. So, it is time to realize that the only way to rid ourselves of the epidemic of drowning within busy lifestyles is to just breathe. We have to swim out into the light of day so we can see how much we are doing that doesn’t deserve our time. Throw it out! Throw out things that are not priorities. Our time was designed by God, is currently held in place by God, and should ultimately be used for God.
Please? Just breathe.
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