I watched a reality TV program a
few months back and, contrary to what I might have expected, God used
it to cement a valuable lesson in the very first episode. In this show,
The Monastery, a group of men with issues had agreed to spend a certain
amount of time living in a monastery with Benedictine monks. A monk
spoke to one of these men about the value of living in the moment, of
giving what you are doing right now your complete and undivided
attention. I don’t remember the monk’s words exactly, but the lesson
stuck with me because God had already been teaching me this very thing.
In our multitasking-is-essential world, living in the
moment can be hard. If I have responsibilities to take care of
immediately after a church service, thoughts of them tend to intrude
during praise and worship. If I have a tight Eclectic Homeschool Online
deadline, thoughts of it inevitably interfere with the book I’m working
on. Even now, writing this article, I keep thinking of something I need
to ask my son when he next walks by.
I have a feeling most people could give similar
examples; I think we all fight it. It seems to me that as a society we
have become so efficiency oriented, so convinced of the necessity of
multitasking, that we have lost a certain discipline, given up the
ability to concentrate on one thing at a time. I even catch myself
doing it during leisure-time activities. I can spend much of a shopping
day anticipating dinner with my friends. During dinner, my thoughts may
be continually drawn to the movie we’re heading to next. While
supposedly immersing myself in the movie, I am quite possibly dealing
with guilt about all of the work that awaits me at home. So what
happens? I don’t enjoy or take part in anything as fully as I should.
In the end, nothing has changed by my dwelling on future tasks before I
needed to.
I’ve fought this tendency in myself for years. It has
only become a bigger issue to me lately because I’ve have had occasion
to witness its detrimental effects on two young men I know, both of
whom, as it happens, feel called to ministry. The first caught my
attention because of his reputation at work. As a person and a
Christian, I value this man highly, but seeing him as an employee?
Well, I am not the only one who knows that his only real interest is
his “great plan.”
He does have great plans—great both in the sense that
they’re big and in the sense that they can greatly benefit the Kingdom
of God—and I am sure these plans will eventually come about. Because of
this, everyone understands that the job he has now is a placeholder of
sorts, nothing more than a way to make money until he takes the big
step he’s so busy preparing for. Unfortunately, this otherwise fine,
upstanding Christian has such a hard time keeping his head and heart on
the job he is doing in the interim that he has developed a reputation
for walking away from projects before they’re finished, putting out the
least amount of effort that he possibly can, and in general avoiding
work whenever possible.
I wish I could say that this is a radical example, but
I know too many people in leadership positions in work and ministry who
all register the same complaint. “I’m tired of babysitting!” In other
words, the inability or unwillingness to fully concentrate on the job
at hand is distressingly common. Now, to avoid a potential flurry of
emails, I will say here that I am well aware that there are many
factors that lead to an overabundance of poor employees; I simply feel
that this is an important one.
Then there is another young man I know. His heart’s
desire is to be in the ministry. His heart’s desire is to be in the
ministry TODAY. He is so focused on being in the ministry that he has a
hard time giving attention to the steps it will take to get there. He
has worked for multiple ministries and every time his attitude has
been... Well, I’d best not take the liberty of putting words in his
mouth or thoughts in his head, but his actions have shown that he has a
distinct aversion to the concept of working his way up the ladder, of
serving in modest capacities today so that he might earn a higher place
tomorrow. Frankly, it’s obvious that he really doesn’t get the fact
that most ministers probably started out cleaning the toilets and that
many cleaned the toilets for a very long time before they were promoted
to the next level of service. He is so intent on tomorrow that he
cannot give all of his attention to today and lives a dissatisfied life
that, unless he changes his attitudes and ways, will never take him
where he firmly believes he ought to be.
Fortunately, as homeschooling parents, we have more
ability than most to influence our children in this area. We have the
ability to help them learn to live in the moment, to give their very
best to each and every job they do—when sweeping to be the best
sweeper, when studying to be the best student, when worshipping God to
be the best worshipper that they can possibly be. Of course, that means
we must discipline our own minds as well, remembering that today is the
season of raising up the next generation, to live in our moments and
continually be conscious of our responsibilities towards these leaders
of tomorrow.
I'm laughing here, having seen once again that, as usual, learning begins with me.
