BLURRED... the world passes us by

BLURRED, a photo by Lauren Withrow on Flickr.

Today I'm going to begin a series of blogs on the sin of restlessness. It's about rushing. The blur of the crowd. The keeping up with the Joneses. I've just returned from Singapore and over and over I saw this. The crowds are one thing, but I'm talking about an inability for an individual to rest.

You know the Bible says "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the 7th day is a day of rest in honor of the Lord your God. You shall do no work in it."

That seems so quaint, so out-of-date, so not with the times. The shops stay open 24/7. The people work less 'official' hours in some countries, but they take their laptop with them, and are ever connected with smart phones and such.

I sat in a meeting last week, speaking to a group of men. They were very enthusiastic to my message, but each man, at one time or another, answered his phone, replied to an SMS or email, and was distracted by the phone. I said, "The phones will wait. None of you is so needed that you cannot take an hour off, you know?" Wow, I saw the restlessness, not only with a day off, but even with an hour off.

The Chinese call this 'kaisu' a sort of 'don't let anyone pass you.' It's a driver, something which they use to keep themselves going and going. Like the Energizer bunny. If they stop, someone might take their place. It's a fear and an inordinate fear for a believer, to be sure.

If you live in fear, you are not living in faith. If you live in restlessness, you are not living in faith, in rest. More on that in the next blog.

Lauren Withrow on Flickr wrote: Via Flickr:
"This life I'm in,
moves by way too fast.
Blurring the edges until nothing is clear.
Someday things should just slow down."

Went to the mall with a couple friends and saw Push. It was pretty good.
Don't know how much I like this but oh well.

feb 8, 2009]
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