Doing versus Being...

So at church yesterday I kept thinking about these two verbs (they are verbs right?) And how one calls us to action and the other calls us to inaction, but regardless of how you look at it you still have to act. Ever since I started school last September, I have really been struggling with feelings of selfishness. The world of school seems soo very selfish..and it's all about ME...what I have to get done, how much time I have to do what I need to do. And it has been such a battle for me to be honest...I have struggled with feelings of resentment, bitterness, reluctance...I resent the fact that school takes up so much of my time, I resent how much money it has cost me and the emotions of bitterness are threaded throughout all of it. So therefore, I am reluctant...I am reluctant to spend my time doing school work, I am reluctant to write my papers...and then I recognize all this, and I feel guilty and selfish for even thinking this way. I am soo very blessed to be receiving an education, esp. a masters becuase so many people don't even have the opportunity to graduate from High school. I am so blessed to have the community I have at school and the teachers I have and to be learning at the capacity that I am...

I have been really frustrated lately with apathy…my own and others. I get frustrated with people in the way they spend their money…and what they spend their money on. I have been feeling really convicted as well in regards to the numerous blessings we have been blessed with by simply being born in this country. Sometimes I get so angry and resentful of those blessings, and this in a way paralyzes me. WE have been blessed so we can go out and be a blessing…we are called to be change agents, but what does that look like for me?

I so often think that it involves DOING something....acting in some way, and lose sight of the importance of simply being. I feel like I always have to be doing something, helping people in some way, getting my hands dirty through action, and I truly feel useless if I am not...and I forget sometimes that inaction can be just as effective.

But then I fear that if I don't do something then I will become apathetic..My greatest fear is apathy and surrounding myself with people who are apathetic. Sometimes I just want to scream at them and say open your eyes to the world, to the globe!! do you see all these people living in it? They are human too and they are suffering, I mean truly suffering!! You think you are suffering because you can't have that car you want, or those shoes you really love and have to have, well at least you have food in your stomach and vaccines and access to clean water and healthcare and an education, at least you can read!! And then I stop for a moment and realize just how bitter I sound and how angry and resentful I am because of the privileges I have. sometimes I wonder WHY it is that I was born here and not someone else, and then it just makes me feel even more responsible and i feel as though i HAVE to act!! I MUST DO SOMETHING ...but what?

So its a cycle...a vicious cycle for me. I am reading all these inspiring books, which I love reading because they Do inspire me...but they inspire me to DO and not to just BE...and the people in these books make me feel inadequate. They make me question if I am doing enough with what I have been given...they make me question if I am making the most of my time here? And I am just now recognizing that in order to be able to DO all those things, you must be able to just BE and be okay sitting in the presence of the Lord....you must remember to focus on the being before you go out to do the doing... We are often soo concerned about our impact that it paralyzes us and we don't do anything, or we lose sight of our main focus, which is the Lord. Such a simple thing really, and because of that simplicity it is so easy to complicate it.

So I walk away humbled....realizing that I truly can't do things on my own because if I do my vision is skewed and I am seeing things through MY own selfish lens, rather than the lens of the Holy Spirit. I realize that I can't be effective on my own because I will keep falling short and falling down and I need Jesus!