tohu va bohu

Some of you are old enough to have been assigned On Walden Pond by Thoreau in an English class. I’m the first to admit that I didn’t complete most of those assignments in high school nor have I gone back to finish the book since. But I at least touched this classic work and was thinking about this sentence earlier today:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Here was a man with a plan to find significance in simplicity. Thoreau’s aim was to get to life by getting away from the distractions of life. Maybe we would say he was searching for meaning by staying away from the meaningless — at least as he defined it. I don’t know if he found what he was looking for but his goal strikes a chord in my heart over one hundred fifty years later.

I often look back at the end of a day only to count many minutes spent thoughtlessly on meaningless pursuits. And I’m guessing I’m not alone. There are too many of us do not live “deliberately.” We are not engaging “only the essential facts of life.” But we don’t need to go to the woods to find life; we need to go to God.

The author of Ecclesiastes instructs us that life can be enjoyed but not because life itself is that great. In fact, just like the quote from Thoreau acknowledges, life itself can distract us from true living. When we seek significance and satisfaction in somethings and someones other than God we are destined for disappointment, because “apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 2:25). Like Thoreau we should resolve to learn the “facts of life” but these facts are learned by secluding yourself in creation, they are learned from seeking the Creator.

You can start by stopping reading this weblog (at least at the end of this blog!) Then take a prayer walk. Remember how much you love your parents and then honor them by expressing it. Thank God for as many things as you can list. Read your Bible. Write a note of spiritual encouragement to a friend. Set your email program to get new mail once an hour instead of every three minutes - and then do something other than surf the internet in between. Take dominion over the earth by mowing the lawn. Sing along to a Third Day praise song. Read Ecclesiastes 11:9 and 12:1, then do it!

Don’t get so distracted by life that you forget to seek and know and love the Giver of it. If you do, you will discover when you come to die that you had not lived.