The other night Connie and I were having one of those end-of-the-day conversations some couples have. I commented that I felt that I hadn’t accomplished much that day and had, in fact, wasted the day. It seemed that the day was pretty much a write off without anything significant being accomplished. Connie reminded me in her loving and realistic way that she didn’t think that spending time with her and with our daughter and granddaughter was nonproductive and insignificant. As usual, she was right. Trying to salvage some ground I corrected myself and said that I just felt that I hadn’t accomplished anything “productive.”
As I reflect on that conversation, I am reminded how wrong I was. I had a great time earlier in the day with our daughter and granddaughter as we sampled a new place to eat and talked and laughed together. I did find some time during the day to be quiet and to read and pray and get in some reflection. But the nagging question is what is “productive” anyway? And why is “productive” and “significant” only measured in terms of what useful, industrious work gets done; what can be pointed to and “valued” in the light of what is turned out.
Like many other people, I am the product/prisoner of my success-driven, results–oriented society and culture that evaluates one’s worth on the basis of what one does or produces or contributes rather than on “being”, being someone. And as a Christian, a Protestant Christian, there is always the pressure of the Protestant Work Ethic (ala Max Webber and the Puritans) lurking in the background. It is usually “doing” rather than “being” that really counts.
Now, I’m not discounting the importance of meaningful work or the proper stewardship of time, gifts and opportunities. But my fixation on needing to accomplish something, to see something tangible and concrete and point to something that I could check-off my “to do” list, did bother me.
It made me think again about the importance of such things as relationships, and the value there is in “wasting” time with others and God (to use a phrase from Klaus Issler’s Wasting Time with God: A Christian Spirituality of Friendship with God). The more I reflect on the Christian life, the more I realize that it is relationship. The relationship does bear fruit, it is productive, but the productivity is a result of the deepening of relationship. Focusing on the production as a sign of one’s worth or contribution is to miss the essential quality and value of life which is life lived in and with God. It is cultivating an attentiveness, an awareness, an openness to the giftedness and wonder of God and of life God gives. Or to use a term of the counselor and spiritual writer Robert Wicks, it is cultivating “Prayerfulness.” Wicks defines “Prayerfulness” as: “Being in the present with your eyes wide open to experiencing God and life in dynamic new ways.”
If the Apostle Paul was right, that God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28; cf. Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3) and the Psalmist is correct that God wants us to be still and know that God is God (Psalm 14:10) and Jesus wasn’t simply uttering pious niceties when he talked about abiding/remaining/resting in union with him, then learning to be attentive, aware to God’s presence in our life and world is really the first task of the follower of Jesus. In this “being” present to God and the wonder of life, we may appear to be “unproductive” or “wasting time”, but actually we are living out our true identity.
Instead of looking for God in the big, extraordinary, astonishing, sensational things of life, maybe the cultivation of our awareness, our prayerfulness, means learning to see how God reveals himself and his many gifts, especially grace, to us in the mundane and unexpected.
There is a story that goes:
The man whispered, “God, speak to me.”
And the meadowlark sang.
But the man did not hear.
So the man yelled, “God, speak to me.”
And thunder and lightning rolled across the sky.
But the man did not listen.
The man looked around and said,” God, let me see you.”
And a star shone brightly.
But the man did not see.
And the man shouted,” God, show me a miracle.”
And a life was born.
But the man did not notice.
So the man cried out in despair, “Touch me, God, and let me know that you are here.”
Whereupon God reached down and touched the man.
But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.
This little story speaks volumes about the busyness and lack of attention that is present in most of our lives. God uses many ways and opportunities to reveal himself to us, but most of the time we are so focused on something else or locked into the ways that we think God will or ought to speak to us or show himself to us, that we miss the evidence of God’s grace that comes to us in the unexpected as well as the routines of life.
The hard truth is that the cultivation of awareness or prayerfulness requires refocusing and opening ourselves up to the presence of God. It requires some discipline. In some ways it requires making some lifestyle changes if we are going to know God more deeply. Marjorie Thompson (Soul Feast, p. 11) writes, “It would be nice if we could simply ‘practice the presence of God’ in all of life, without expending energy on particular exercises. But the capacity to remember and abide in God’s presence comes only through steady training.” But instead of being more work or toil or something that binds us, spiritual disciplines offer freedom to recognize God in the world. Henri Nouwen (Making All Things New, p. 68) writes, “Through a spiritual discipline we prevent the world from filling our lives to such an extent that there is no place left to listen. A spiritual discipline sets us free.” Worship, prayer, Bible study, silence, and service are just some of the spiritual disciplines that God has given to us to make us more attentive to those evidences of His grace that come to us on a daily basis. And if we allow them to shape our lives, then, like Brother Lawrence in Practicing the Presence of God, even while working we can be aware of the presence of God and the wonder of life.
Let me ask you a question that I continually ask myself: How often have we asked, begged God to reveal himself and missed it when it came? The lesson is to learn how to be sensitive to the many ways, large and small, that God reveals himself. And if we do, no day will be insignificant or wasted. Prepare to be surprised and blessed!
