The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon!

2nd Timothy 2:4 Reads:
"No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." (NASB)

William Wordsworth wrote:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

We have given our hearts away? Really? To whom and for whom? I would propose that noise is a possible answer to this question. Noise is cacophony, discord, unrest, business, work, leisure, new toys, achievement, passivity, and loneliness. It is a lot of other things, too. In fact, it can be nearly anything you want it to be. Noise, in the auditory sense, is what distracts our attention from something or makes it hard to hear clearly. In terms of oral communications (i.e. Speech Class) it is anything that is going on that takes your attention off of the speaker. This can be literal noise like microphone feedback, crying babies, or a neighbor's sneezing attack, or it can be non-auditory things like how (good, bad, poorly, splendidly) someone is dressed, the temperature in the room, the stature of the speaker, etc. The end result of noise is that it can cause a person to lose focus on what is important. The good news is that it doesn't have to.

Humans have to be taught nearly everything. We are taught to be distracted. Yes, on the desk of our enemy is this mandate, inlaid in gold under a sheet of glass, "Endeavor to lead the chaotic life, attend to everyone's business, and give up the work or your hands." "How?" you ask. Look around you. Look at yourself. Spend more time looking at yourself. How do I get myself going in the morning? How many hours a day is my TV on? How many hours do I spend online? What do I do to wind down? Does any of this involve silence or meditation? When I ask myself these questions, I find the answers troubling. My students are amazed when I tell them I don't watch TV. I always clarify that we have a TV, we just don't pay for or receive any broadcast transmissions. But, I would be kidding myself to think that I don't waste too much time on the internet, or reading, or listening to music. I seldom, if at all enjoy good, quite, alone time.

I have been taught that it is a bad thing to be without something to occupy my time. When did it start? Early in life. There was the TV and those Saturday morning cartoons. Then there was sports and practice during the week with games on Saturdays. There was music with hit after hit pouring out of the speakers of my Magnavox ghetto-blaster. There was the endless pile of FourWheeler magazines that littered my floor, worn out and covers long ago lost. There was the computer with its access to all manner of knowledge siphoning off countless hours of my life. From the time I was a little boy to now I have been trained to occupy my time and waste away. Ouch! This is damning. I was missing the point the whole time and was too busy to notice it.

I suppose it needs be said that these things I'm enumerating are not bad things. Playing competitive sports, watching some TV, listening to music, surfing the internet, or reading magazines can be very appropriate ways we can relax or enjoy ourselves. Temperance, however,is the key concept in not allowing these things to become a burden in our lives. These things become problematic when they take a foremost priority in our daily lives. When I can't foresee anything other than sitting down in the recliner after supper to watch __________ like I do every night or turning the radio on in the car before I pull out of the drive-way I am placing this thing between God and me. John Eldredge said that worship is whatever you dedicate your heart and time too. I believe he is right.

So I turn on the noise without even thinking about it. I check myself out. I drift off into the realm of the impotent. I am neutralized.

Paul tells Timothy that this should not be so. Timothy has his hands full and Paul, speaking with analogies, tells Timothy that soldiers are trained to ignore those everyday things that tend to distract us civilians. Think back to any good war movie of your choosing. I'm thinking about Saving Private Ryan. Omaha beach is bathed in blood and Tom Hanks' character is leading a group of men around a bunker. A machine-gun nest is raining down fire upon them. Let's think about what these men had running through their minds. "Keep the sand out of the action," "Keep covered," "Watch my buddy's back," "Objective- take out machine-gun nest." There probably wasn't too much contemplation going on about the fact that they were wet, or their boots were a tad to big or small, or that what-his-name has a prettier girlfriend waiting on him back in the states.

Paul does not use this analogy by accident, and its intent is not to be taken lightly. When we get weighed down by earthly crap we are guilty of gross dereliction of duty. We have lost sight of our number-one goal as Christians: to exalt Christ, evangelize the lost, and edify the saints. When we are preoccupied with distractions of our own making or lost in the drama of others we cannot possible perform our orders with any authentic sense of allegiance to Christ. Our lives become a shell game. As Shakespeare wrote in MacBeth, "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing." We put on our Christian suit and go to church. We scurry around one-hundred and sixty-six hours a week with our own agenda on our minds and expect a two hour church service get our senses and sensibilities restored.

We know that God has our hearts in mind. We know that He won't ask us to do what we can't. But how will we ever know if we never give Him time to speak to us?

Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote in "The Charge of the Light Brigade",

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

This is us. We are surrounded (whether we know it or not) by an enemy that is in full war against us and our families.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:

We have orders, simple orders to follow. Take Tennyson's plea to heart along with me, knowing that in God's economy "do" is backed with the full authority of heaven and our "die" is the consummation of our commitment to the covenant He made with us (We get to go to heaven!).