unholy frenzy

The Lord may be slow, but I am not. Perhaps the Creator can unhurriedly speak life into existence, and then rest, but I can’t afford myself that luxury. He promises Abraham a family as innumerable as the stars, but the patriarch of our faith has only two sons of his own. He vows that David’s throne will be established forever, but generations come and go before the Servant King arrives. Jesus tells us he’s coming back, but thousands of years have passed since his ascension.

I am not slow to anything. I’m quick to anger, annoyance, impatience. And these are easy to spot, because they’re usually accompanied by a bad attitude and rotten speech. But the truth is not just that I am quick to sin. It’s that I’m frantic to begin with. I’m frenzied. And even if there is a level of panic that I can squash down and keep secret, it is not a holy frenzy. It’s a problem.

I need to do more than slow down when I’m feeling angry. I need to slow down, period. 

There’s no need to feel frantic. It is not logical. I know that there won’t be enough time in the day to make sure the house is perfectly clean and the children perfectly cared for and my husband perfectly loved. Something won’t happen; maybe there’s laundry still in the dryer, crumbs still under the table, a stack of books still unread when the light winks out. Or maybe there’s no trip to a playground, no bringing out the food processor to make Oreo balls, no setting up a game of Sorry at the dining room table. I know in my head that the Lord has not called me to be and do all things all the time, and my husband has tried so hard to unburden me from the pressures I exert on myself, but I still feel it. The constant hum of frenzy.

You can’t see it, just by looking at me. I might have gone outside with a book, and it may look like I’m reading serenely drinking tea while my little ones collect sticks in the backyard. But I’m really noticing my eyes have skimmed three pages and I haven’t paid attention to any of the words because I’m thinking of the to-do list written on a scrap of paper in the kitchen and the calendar reminders of my phone. I’m wondering when they’ll get done, the order in which they’ll get done, how I’ll feel if I can’t get them done. And then I blame the book: if only it were better written, of course I wouldn’t be cycling through my mental list of daily tasks.

And it’s not just the chores that consume my thought life. I’m constantly analyzing how I’m spending my time, if I’m spending it wisely, if my children need more social time or less, more structured time or less. Would it be better to go to the zoo or dig holes in the front yard? Should I spend more time on schoolwork or let them color on the floor for as long as they want? It is better to cook a variety of real food or make burgers all the time? Should I write more? Read more? Exercise more? Sign my children up for extra curriculars?

The real question is not whether I should haul my family to the zoo for the day, it’s this: why am I frenzied?

Right now, I have only theories, not answers. The first: feeling frantic doesn’t seem sinful, and so I’m not very likely to repent and turn to the Lord. It doesn’t feel wrong. Only hard. Frustrating. Not wrong.

Maybe a better question is what am I worshipping? In Isaiah 44:9-20, Isaiah exposes the ridiculousness of idolatry. A carpenter fells a random tree, uses part of it to build a fire and bake bread and part to carve an idol. He creates something with his own hands, then bows down to the little idol and cries out for deliverance.

I might feel superior to the carpenter. I haven’t built anything with my own hands (unless you consider our bank account that provides all the financial security we need). I’m not bowing down, and I’m certainly not crying out for deliverance to anyone else.

But I think, sometimes, the object of our worship isn’t something that we have, but something we want. And then it’s easier to delude ourselves into thinking we’re not worshipping that thing at all, because we don’t, like Isaiah’s carpenter, have the idol in our grasp. We can’t worship money if we don’t enough; we can’t worship pleasure if we’re too busy for fun; we can’t worship productivity if the to-do list is never complete. 

Earlier in Isaiah, in 43:22-24, the Lord says this:

“Yet you did not call upon me, o Jacob;

but you have been weary of me, O Israel!

You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings,

or honored me with your sacrifices.

I have not burdened you with offerings,

or wearied you with frankincense.

You have not bought me sweet cane with money,

or satisified me with the fat of your sacrifices.

But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me  with your iniquities.”

We may read this passage and assume the Israelites had failed in their cultic duties and ceased making sacrifices and offerings. But that’s not quite right. They were bringing offerings and burning sacrifices. But their hearts weren’t in it. They weren’t worshiping, they were going through the motions. When the Lord claims that they haven’t called upon him, he doesn’t mean they’ve been silent. He means that whoever the object is of their prayers, of their sacrifices, isn’t him. It’s something else. Someone else.

And I think that this is true for us, too. Maybe we’re not carving idols, but that doesn’t mean we’re actually worshiping our Lord.

I don’t know why I feel frantic, and I don’t know what idol I’ve been begging for deliverance. But I do know it’s letting me down. The abundant life we have in Jesus is not marked by frenzy. And perhaps the way to worship rightly is not to perfectly identify the false gods I’ve clung to, but offer my very self up as a sacrifice (Rom 12:1).