Acknowledge the Tension Between Doing and Being

As a task-oriented person, I’m tempted to start the New Year by writing a long list of goals I’d like to accomplish in 2013. It would start with basic stuff like….

It would graduate to tougher things such as…

The tension

I find that writing goals is a good exercise for me. It forces me to think about what I hope to achieve, and it helps me determine concrete steps necessary to get the job done. Yet, because I’m so task-driven, it’s easy for me to get hung up on doing, doing, doing

In my eagerness to accomplish much, I sometimes neglect to simply “be.” As a career missionary, I find it a constant struggle not to let my work consume me, but rather, to focus on my relationship with Jesus and let ministry flow from that.

The right perspective

I’m reading through The One Year Bible for the seventh time. Wouldn’t you know it? Early in Genesis, I find a reminder to keep the right perspective on doing versus being.

Tucked into a long list of who begat who, we find these words:

“Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God” (Genesis 5:22-24).

Skip to Genesis 6:8-9 and read these words:

“Noah found favor with the Lord…Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.”

These passages don’t elaborate about what Enoch and Noah did with their time, the goals they set, and the things they accomplished (Noah’s ark story comes later), but they do tell us what God deemed important.

These guys knew how to “be.” They knew how to be followers of God, how to be in right relationship with Him, how to be blameless before Him. Even in the midst of goals I hope to achieve, I want to be the woman God wants me to be and enjoy close fellowship with Him.