"Doing Nothing Is Better Than Being BUSY Doing Nothing."--philosopher Lao Tzu

I hear it every day.

"I'm too busy to..." Finish the sentence with anything enjoyable you'd like to do.

"I mean, with Jane's _________ and Timmy's __________ and our ___________..." Fill in the blanks with whatever the children do and whatever responsibilities you have.

Yep. Being busy is to The Aughts what money was to yuppies in the '80's and style was to hipsters in the '90's. We use that word proudly, as a badge of honor and importance.

And, I read my friend Mike's blog entry from Feb. 19. Go ahead. Click on the link. Read it. We'll be here when you get back.

Back now?

Good.

We could all write our own blog entries with similar stories. Couldn't we?

And I commented on the entry. Throughout the Old Testament, God promised the Israelites rest. Christ spoke of the easy yoke and the light burden. Not to mention that He wanted people to come to Him so they could get...

...rest.

When I think of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, in those topsy-turvy words that, in effect told a crowd of subversives and revolutionaries that The Revolution was indeed coming. Just not in the way you think, kids. I mean, He'd just blessed all the WRONG people, didn't He? At least not right now, anyway. See, you're supposed to illuminate the world and give it flavor and you stink at it, Israelites. He then proceeded to show that The Revolution was inward.

In the hearts and minds of the hearers. In other words, the outward going-through-the-motions religion that's been in place is backwards. Inward realities make outward changes.

Anger gets revisited.
Adultery does, too.
Taking oaths, too.

The standards for all of those are a bit more stringent than the current milieu may suggest, eh?

Loving enemies, too. Uh-oh. I thought The Messiah was supposed to, well, overthrow the enemies.
Giving? Yeah. Do that in private.
Prayer? Yeah. Do that in private, too.
Fasting? Yeah. Again. Private.

And then Christ...

...in his Inaugural Address, no less...

...deals with anxiety. An enemy of rest.

And the reality that, in order to give the world the illumination and that flavor as they observe us, we're supposed to, off all things, seek Him AND His righteousness and He'll take care of today. We're supposed to be different from the world with regard to how we handle stress and busyness.

And my suggestion is that all stress & anxiety...

...which are the main ingredients in our recipe for Busy Soup (because we really don't believe what Scripture says here, do we?)...

...comes from disbelief that what God says He actually will do.

So, we try to keep the plates spinning.

Because we have it all under control.

Right?

Now, I didn't mean to go off on a rant here today.

But I'm kind of glad I did.

As long as we'll chime in on HOW we can take the idea of REST seriously in our culture.

So, have at it, patrons. Let's encourage each other today with some ways we REST.

And maybe the cares of this world will grow strangely dim...