Good Works and Busy Work

I once heard tell of a manufacturing company whose business model is to have its employees work 16-hour days. To most (if not all) of us, that sounds inhumane. To that company, it looks excellent on paper: “Wow! Sixteen hour work days? This company must be really committed! What an inspiration!” 

What doesn’t show up on paper, though,  are the numerous breaks for meals and naps and utter lack of time management– and the fact that if it was done in an efficient manner, the work would maybe only take five hours to complete. The reality of this is taboo, however. 

I’m connecting this story to something I’ve experienced. There are times when the thing we know is right for us to do is the thing we don’t want to do. 

Sometimes we emulate Adam and blame our failure to do the right thing on someone else. Sometimes we pull a Jonah and run as far as we can from the right thing. 

Sometimes we do a Saul* and try to avoid that right thing while simultaneously working to distract/placate our consciences by instead making a “sacrifice”: doing a heap of distinctly *~*other~but~fabulous*~* things for the purpose of diverting attention from what we should be doing in the first place, while hopefully at the same time winning ourselves appreciation, or even admiration, from anyone who doesn’t know what’s really up. Then if we get called out, we’ll be able to hide behind this enormous, lovely pile of sacrificial works, and use them to justify ourselves. 

No show of hands, but have you ever been there? 

This brilliant plan doesn’t actually work, does it?

The problem with obedience is that IT is the real sacrifice. Obedience requires that I put aside my judgment of how things ought to go and accept the will of Another. We human beings hate this. We’d rather overextend ourselves doing what we think is good and right– especially loving to say (so altruistically) that we’re doing it for the Lord… but then we get offended when God says “I don’t want any of that nonsense.” 

Excuse me, Lord, but did You not see how hard I worked on that nonsense just for You? 

Rude. 

Unfortunately/fortunately, God isn’t playing our little games. Why would He settle for our remaining trapped in the bondage of our judgment, when He’s about freedom? His law is liberation. 

*The story of Saul, the poster child for this particular brand of self-deception, is found in 1 Samuel 15.