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Religious: Exhausted by relaxation
Pastor Eric J Kregel
for South Peace News
Maxwell Bradbury’s troubles began when he resolved to live a relaxed life.
On Jan. 1, he did not renew his day planner, sold his Blackberry, threw out his calendars and quit planning anything in his life. His resolution was simple: whenever someone wanted or needed something from him, he would respond. He would never call anyone directly, never plan to do anything, and would sit, waiting for a call or a prompt, then act.
He told his family and friends he wanted to be more relaxed, but many of them didn’t believe this to be the only answer as to why he did what he did. Yet this resolution to be relaxed was a mystery as to what he was genuinely trying to accomplish.
At first, his resolution produced a slow, almost non-existent life, which he enjoyed. He would sit on his couch, watch cartoons. In between the cartoons, the commercials would tell him to buy things. He would leave his comfortable couch and go shopping.
While at the market, he noticed newspapers full of stories and images telling him he needed to be frightened. They told him to be frightened of outsiders, of teenagers, of gangsters, of terrorists, of politicians that disagreed with him, and of religion. He obeyed and resolved to shop fearfully.
Maxwell returned home to find two messages: one from his employer asking him to work on the weekend and a telemarketer selling a time share in Las Vegas. He said yes to both, figuring this was fate because he would have to work extra hours to afford a time share in Las Vegas. Later, it occurred to him that he hated Vegas and all he wanted to do was watch cartoons.
At work, every project that came up, Maxwell volunteered for, earning respect and excitement from his boss.
“I like the new, relaxed you,” he said as Maxwell wondered when he’d ever see his time share in Vegas that he didn’t really want.
Maxwell applied his resolution to his job: anytime someone needed something, he would do it. In fact, work became a series of interruptions: as he ran to do one thing, someone would ask him to do something else causing his to run in a different direction. Soon, he gained a promotion for all of his activities requiring him to work more hours and obey more voices.
When at home, he quit watching cartoons because he felt they were too demanding. So he went on-line, following every single pop-up add and clicking every link recommended to him. He replied to an e-mail asking for his SIN number, doing what it told him even though it was from a bank he’d never heard of. At midnight, he collapsed from exhaustion: his relaxation was getting too much for him.
The days turned into weeks as Maxwell ran from opportunity to opportunity. He lost weight, he had no sleep, and his found himself irritable to friend and stranger alike.
One day, he overheard one his coworkers call him the name ‘Echo’. Maxwell asked why they nicknamed him this and the coworker explained, “You don’t have a voice of your own, but you’re just an echo of someone else’ request.”
All Maxwell became a conflict of intentions.
He originally feared that if he ever made plans or took responsibility for his dreams, he’d be busy. So he did what he was told by the world. He resolved to be relaxed, but found a reward in people being pleased with him because he did what they asked ... so he continued obeying everyone. It seemed simple because he simply didn’t know what to do for the day and he didn’t have to think.
The result, though, was he was no longer Maxwell Bradbury but just a mere echo of the world around him.
A mentor of mine once gave a remarkable quip: “The opportunities of man will always outnumber the callings of God.”
This matches what Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all who are tired and I shall give you rest. My burden is easy, my yoke is light.”
These two quotes seem counter-intuitive. How can following God be easy and living a relaxed life apart from God be stressful? Because God’s ways are what we need, what is good for us, and gives us rest. And when we live apart from His calling, we will either obey our own selfish whims or the high demands of the rest of the world.
God created us to do His will, so His will involves us, the real us, and not just us to echo the requests and demands of those around us. Our lives become easier, satisfying, and joyful when we do God’s will and only His will. It’s when we try to be selfish, do other people’s wills, react to our world’s demand, and God’s will that things become stressful, hard, and complicated.
Yet God’s will is what truly matters in life and it’s what He will be ultimately looking for when our lives are finally measured.
When we come to the end of this world, promised to us by the Bible, what will our answers be when God asks if we followed His will?
Will we be able to say, “I heard your voice as you called me, the real me with all of my dreams and true desires, and I said yes. I followed you and my life was very fulfilling. You called me to be so much. Not too much, but so much.”
Or will our voice sound like an echo?
“God, you don’t understand. I was busy keeping other people happy.”
“But I didn’t like going to church. I had a bad experience with Christians, so I wrapped you up with the church package. By reacting to them, I never served you.”
“I was running from one thing to the next. I thought about everything else that the world told me to think about. If you just had a pop-up or a compelling commercial or an e-mail, then maybe..."
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