Sitting at dinner one night, my family was unusually quiet and no one would make eye contact with me. They don’t call me 007 for nothing so I picked up on this right away.“Ok, what’s going on?” I demanded. A barrage of “You tell her,” “No, you tell her,” and “I’m not telling her,” filled the room. Finally a confession was made. “I said we’d make cookies for the orchestra concert.”And a second confession, “We’re in charge of the department Christmas party this year.” I don’t do well when I’m over-scheduled and everyone at the table knew it. My mostly sane mother persona takes the last train to Clarksville. My family was afraid the train whistle was coming.
There is a danger in busyness and especially busyness in “spiritual activities.” There is a danger in Good Dirt. In Good Dirt there are lots of activities that we, list makers will want to check off in order to feel good about ourselves. That is a serious danger. Checking things off in Good Dirt will not make you holy. God will not love you or your children more. (As if he could love you more than he already does…seriously.) Turning Good Dirt into a legalistic checklist of behaviors and activities to manipulate your family or God will make you crazy… or your family crazy and then you will start looking like Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation with eleven thousand twinkly lights, cutting off the newel post, and burning down your Christmas tree. (OK. Maybe not all that.)
Actually it’s more serious than that. Making a “to do” list out of a spiritual tools can lead two ways.
- Failure, we don’t measure up and then we think God doesn't approve of us. His love or approval doesn't hinge on what you’re doing.
- Success, you get all the things on the “to do” list checked off. Now, you are really hard to live with. Pride. You and yours are so holy because you have done x,y, and z. God is interested in who you are becoming, not how many religious practices you accomplish.
Ben and I have this really wonderful friend named Jan Johnson*. She has been telling us the same thing for years now,
“Do as you can, not as you can’t.”
When you take a look at Good Dirt and you see a list of things to do, do them if you can. Do them if you think they will draw you and your people closer to Jesus. Choose a few, (few as in one or two) do those… linger over them, spend time talking to one another, open up the space for God to move.
The point is not a holy list of “have-tos.”
The point is to become more fully the person God has created us to be and that happens when we have the open space to really connect with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and our family.