A couple weeks ago, when I was at New Providence Presbyterian Church for pulpit exchange Sunday, a member of the congregation got up to give the prayers of the people. It was their early service, and their early service has many young families in it. So the woman who was giving the prayer talked about "running." She asked for God's care and forgiveness for the times we run around aimlessly, taking kids to this practice and that practice, volunteering at the church and PTA, spending extra hours at work, and eating meals on the go. It seems as though all this running around gives us precious little time to stop and contemplate, or even get a moment's peace to consider God.
The Maryville community is similar to our community in that these two areas vie year after year for being the top educational system in Tennessee. In many ways, this is a good thing. Both communities place high value on the importance of educational opportunities for our children, and multiple opportunities for adults to have intellectual conversations and do important things for the community. To many of us, this sounds ideal - utopian - the great Shangri La, which ironically was an early suggestion for the name of our community. And yet, the pressures to do everything and be everything mount up very quickly. It's not good enough for your child to be good at school, they also have to play a sport, learn a musical instrument, and be involved in other civic and church functions. Parenting becomes competitive! Others who aren't directly involved in raising children are expected to commit their non-working time to the life of the community, or else they are only a burden to the system. Productivity in whatever form is given top billing, and it doesn't seem to matter what is produced, just that the flurry of activity continues.
With all this running, is it clear that there's a prize? Is the prize smart kids? Is it a clean and interesting town? Is it financial success? Measurable accomplishments? Or is it just keeping up with the neighbors?
At our Session retreat, and at New Providence's Sunday School class, the question of commitment came up. How do we get people to commit to doing things for the church when they're so committed elsewhere? Even though they are about 5 times our size in membership, in both churches, it seems as though the same people teach Sunday School, serve on committees, participate in worship, and in general keep the church going. There's an air of frustration about this. Why don't more people step up to the plate? Those involved in the conversations wonder, will I have to say "yes" again because no one else will? I understand the pressure to balance work and home, church and soccer, social time and family time. It's becoming a part of American culture in many places, not just Oak Ridge and Maryville.
But I asked the question of our Session - "What do we want people to be committed to?" The first answer, and I think the answer our culture also tells us, was "Everything." I think that's why we're so frustrated. We still believe that we can do everything and that nothing will get done in the world if we don't do it ourselves. Palmer Parker affirms this as an American problem that we "resist the very idea of limits, regarding limits of all sorts as temporary and regrettable impositions on our lives. Our national myth is about the endless defiance of limits: opening the western frontier, breaking the speed of sound, dropping people on the moon, discovering 'cyberspace,' at the very moment when we have filled old-fashioned space with so much junk that we can barely move." He concludes by saying, "We refuse to take no for an answer." (Let Your Life Speak, pp.42-43)
Knowing the limits of our commitments is important. Paul talks to the Corinthian church - another group of over-achievers and tells them not to run aimlessly, or run for the prize of an imperishable wreath. We need to run for the prize worth winning. We need to be committed not to "everything" but to one thing - and that is Christ. Palmer affirms this as a blessing of limits. We cannot do everything, be everything, or love everybody. We have to acknowledge those times when the answer is "no." It has become a status symbol just to be "busy." Sickly, it can be a virtue to have tired, stressed out children.
Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Our burdens have become heavy because we have tried to carry too many things. Life needs breathing room - room for God.
Here's where the prophet Isaiah, and the whole of Old Testament rhythms get it right, and we in a 24/7 culture get it wrong. Let God be God. "Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?" It is God who sits above the earth - we are only grasshoppers. God has got control so you don't have to. Holding the world together is God's job, not ours. Think you're a prince, doesn't matter to God. Think you're save and secure where you are, God will blow upon you and you'll be scattered to the far ends. No one is God's equal - so don't even try.
We've forgotten the blessing of Sabbath. We've come to see resting time as a curse, as something our bodies must do even if we'd rather they didn't. However, rest is necessary for us to gain our perspective as creatures instead of Creator. We can stop, for 24 hours even, and the world will not even notice. We may be weary and exhausted, but those who wait for the Lord, those with patience who know their limits, they will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary; they will walk and not faint.
If you're dead tired. If you're committed to everything, and not the God-thing, STOP! Come to Jesus and find rest. Put your trust in the Lord and gain the strength of eagles.