For the last few weeks I have been posting devotional material from my out-of-print book (2006), “When God Gives a Time Out.” Today’s post contains chapter 5, but you can read chapter 1 here: “An Introduction to Time Outs” and then catch up on the other chapters. Today’s chapter focuses on the pull towards constantly doing things, even when it hurts others.
Do the Do
Keeping busy is so entrenched in our culture that everyone is affected to some degree. We all tend to be more focused on tasks than relationships. Performing a task is a concrete goal that is measurable. Usually, we know when the task is complete, when we have met our goal, and when we can move on. Relationships are more process oriented and they really don’t end. Because they don’t really end, relationships seem less pressing, or urgent, than tasks. Because the task has a deadline, we do the task and put the relationship on hold. Another reason we gravitate towards tasks is that relationships involve at least two parties and all the variables that go along with each one. So what is nice and tidy and wrapped with a little bow today, may be an all out fistfight tomorrow. It is much less messy to concentrate on tasks, so that is how most of us operate. Yes, some of us are more task-oriented than others, but I think most people have had a time in their life (or their whole life) when they felt the need to “do the do.” During these times God may intervene and give us a “time out.” Continue reading
God actually wants what is best for us and He desires to bless us by fulfilling His promises to His followers. We can’t follow God’s voice into these blessings if we aren’t listening. This deafness is why God gives “time outs.” We are busy and the activity is distracting us because our choices are coming from a source other than God. We are choosing to do many things for many reasons but none of this activity is from the Father’s instruction. God gives us a time out so that we can hear His voice once again and our actions can spring from an interaction with God. Wouldn’t it be great if all the things we did actually drew us closer to God instead of distracting us from Him? God wants you and me to experience this blessing.
I followed my plan for about a year and a half with quite a bit of success. My plan changed, however, when God brought me to my first “time out.” God gave me a sneak peak into what would happen if I actually achieved everything in my plan. I asked myself, “If my wildest dreams came true, if I become a high level advisor on the national level, or if I am elected to the legislature, then so what?” Even if I achieved all those goals, they would be gone – forgotten within a generation. If I achieved my wildest dreams I would have achieved nothingness. This revelation didn’t come about subtly. It was driven home by a Bible cult that I had started hanging around with. (I describe this association more in subsequent chapters.) God knew that I needed a LOUD wake up call. After a short time of looking at things through an eternal perspective I knew that God was the only thing of any permanence and the only thing worth devoting my life to. I soon realized that I wanted to devote my life to God but not this cult. In the cult’s eyes you couldn’t do one without the other. Rather confused and feeling that I didn’t want to follow my plan or this cult anymore, I left. I went back home to live with my parents. For the next couple of months I was in time out. God took away everything I was doing. I no longer had a plan except to abandon my old plan because it was worthless. I didn’t have a clear grasp of what the Bible really said or what God wanted me to do next. Away from college and all I had lived for, I spent the subsequent few months pouring over the Bible for myself. I really focused on the voice of the Father and my relationship with Him grew. This was my first time out and it felt like the hardest time of my life while I was going through it. But in hindsight, I am so thankful for that time out. I was so focused on doing, on achieving, on following the American dream that I was actually throwing my life and relationship with the Father away. God was trying to tell me this truth for some time, but I couldn’t hear him. I was too busy doing stuff. I needed a time out and that is exactly what I received. 
I use the term “time out” because God does in concept what we see so many parents literally doing to their children. It all boils down to the fact that the child is not listening. They may be doing something they are not supposed to do or just doing something other than listening. The parent makes the child cease all activity. The child must now sit on the stairs, or in a special chair, with nothing to do except listen.
If you are a parent, you have probably experienced what I recently witnessed. At a local store, a young boy was bursting with energy. Every inch of his body was in motion. All this chaotic movement didn’t seem to have a purpose other than expending energy. He jumped on one foot, then the other. Soon he began to shake his head from side to side as if saying, “No.” Perhaps he wanted the outside world to mirror his topsy-turvy condition on the inside. The child then climbed on the front of the carriage for a ride. The mother’s call to calm down fell on senses more focused on doing than listening. Since the ride wasn’t fast enough, the child hopped off the carriage so that he could touch everything. He grabbed at everything in range of his small hands, trying to do what the big people do when they shop. The exasperated mother pulled the child into the center of the aisle to put the distractions out of reach and told him, “Stop touching things without asking first!” But this child had to DO something; there were so many stimuli in this place, and they all called out to be engaged. As the scene reached its climax, the boy cried out, “Look, a plate just like the one we have at home!” He snatched up the plate to see if it was indeed the same. Halfway through the motion, the child remembered that he wasn’t supposed to touch without asking and his attention-divided fingers let go of the plate. The frustrated mother had reached her limit. Mustering all her patience, the mother sternly told the boy to go sit on the bench for a “time out.” The mother cleaned up the broken shards and said something like, “You have to listen to me. You can get hurt and you hurt other people’s things when you can’t calm down and listen to me.”
throughandto 