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!).

Taking the sails down before the wind is taken from the sails

Once in a while we receive news that takes the wind from our sails. It knocks us back on our heels, shocks us, drives us off course. Some surprises are certainly better than other, but really, as a Christian, one should never be truly surprised. It is all a matter of training.
Training prepares us for adverse situations, prevents failures in procedure, and refreshes our faculties. It is needed as we learn a skill, as we continue in that skill, and as we become professional in that skill.
Ask any figure skater about training and they will tell you that from the time they were pre-school age they have been on skates. “What about now? You are a professional, surely you don't train now?”
“Oh, yes indeed! I train more now than I ever have.”
So we train, we study, we hone our skills. Good. But what if we never rest from our daily labors and our training? How effective are we in doing our job? Whom do we depend upon? Can we listen to what our Boss is saying?
A close friend told me of a weight training program that has proven very effective for bodybuilders and athletes of all sorts. Without thinking about it, one might assume that working out everyday would bring about maximum benefit in both strength and muscle growth. While it makes sense, it is physiologically wrong. Working out certain muscle groups once, twice, or three times per week gives the muscles time to repair and grow while you are resting. Some people see maximum muscle and strength growth by working out just once a week.
Spiritually and intellectually we are just like the bodybuilder. We can immerse ourselves in doing the work of the church and have it become church work in a short time. What is the difference? The work of the church is done without regret for mutual eternal gain. Church work, on the other hand, is done at a loss and for selfish gain. Intellectually, we gain consummate knowledge and esoteric detail only to lose sight of the greater picture and become a slave to the wit of man. We fuss over the gnat in our brother's eye while ignoring the rhinoceros beetle that is lodged in our own eye. More importantly, we let our intellect take credit for the work of the Almighty.
Jonathan Edwards, while doctrinally unsound in his sermon “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God”, said that “you find that you are kept out of hell and yet don't see the hand of God in it.” We are blessed with peace and prosperity and we say, “Man did this.” We are favored among men in all manner of ways and we say, “I'm the best man for the job.” We take credit for creation, for health, for prosperity- and never see the hand of God in it.
Thankfully, we are provided with a reprieve, a chance to let our muscles repair and grow. This chance lets us reflect upon the lessons we have been taught. It lets us see the beauty around us. It lets us realize how we fit into the greater picture without missing the forest for all of the trees. It is the Shabbat, or as we like to say in Christianity, the Sabbath. The word Sabbatical comes from this root. Most people hear the term and think that it is a time to work on something else, take a pause from your real job and get more education or pursue a new venture. In its truest sense, it means to cease work and acknowledge the one whose work you are a product of.
The world we live in is so much opposed to this idea that its true meaning is all but lost in our western society. This is no surprise. We have a great enemy whose main intention is to guide God's children (everyone on the planet) to distraction. When we are distracted, we have no time to think on the big picture or the artist who painted the picture. Americans in particular are lost in a sea of stuff. We have distraction upon distraction and we crave more distractions to insure our escape from the reality that we are not our own. We run and hide. We lose ourselves in whatever distraction that suits our fancy. We never stop and rest. We die early, in poverty and in a state of unrest.
The Jewish Shabbat requires no work to be done on from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. We, as a rule, would be driven crazy, with “nothing to do.” Yet, that doesn't mean that we can not benefit from installing in our life the practice of honoring a Shabbat. Folks we have to have it. It is not an option. Without it we will work ourselves to death and drive off the very people we love so much. We will lose sight of what God really wants for his children. And we will never maximize our growth spiritually or intellectually. Neglecting the principle of Shabbat ensures our works become church work which will be consumed with fire. Not the person, the works will be consumed. God wants the best for his children, not a second rate version of something that is good. That is why He required the Israelites to practice the Shabbat. He knows that with less us, there is more evidence of Him on earth.