Human Being, Human Doing
- Jan 22, 2018
- 4 min read
Human Being, Human Doing
Where are you?
Where are you?
I dream of Eden.
The composition of dust and breath,
weak,
fatal,
fleeting
In a moment,
Holiness descended beyond the veil meeting
Creation created,
set apart,
identified.
Eternity was woven into the heart of man;
awake, living, alive, breathing, being.
Breath.
Heart.
Beating.
Where are you?
I do things that I believe I can do on my own strength
Because, I believe I am in control.
I wake up,
I go to work,
I come back from work,
I work out,
I eat,
I sleep,
I repeat.
I continue to do, and do, and do until
I am so worn so thin. And eternity beats harder
and harder against my chest.
There are countless things I put in my way to distract me.
My excuse: I’m tired, I don’t have time, I’m done, I can’t, I give up, I give in…
yet I do more,
I take and give glory to my doing,
I am addicted to it.
And the beating begins to bruise my soul,
and the world gives enticing opportunities and ideas to numb the pain…
Where are you?
Tell me something I don’t know.
Ha, I don’t know…
I am raw wood and salvage material that has lost its unfiltered appeal,
because in order to be ideal
I need varnish to cover up my tarnished history.
And the best varnish you can get is
the one where works and deeds,
not praying on my knees,
can change the world…
a world
where I can
buy and sell,
bargain and deal,
pay for,
maybe even steal
the appeal of society.
I can work until my brain can’t stop,
or rather I won’t stop because I worry I may break… down… hard.
Rusted into top gear by
all the sweat, blood, and tears
it took to get me here,
I am a product of my work.
Where are you?
I chose to believe that I was
naked,
bare,
so aware of my faults,
my failures,
but the only way to cover up is to kill and beat the ground over and over again.
“Who told you that you were naked?”
Come ON!
Who told you… who told me I was naked?
I listened to doubt,
I chose to believe that Doing things for God was greater than Being with God…
See, humans were not created first before the foundations of the earth,
no, they were created last before God’s day of rest
when after all was said and done –
and the doing was completed and all that was left
was to enjoy, to create, to tend, to name, to be…
behold, become, beloved, belong...
to flourish in the identity established for us.
But, instead we chose to listen to the voice that questioned that very identity…
“Do you know you are naked?
Well you better DO something about that.”
Breath. Heart. Beating.
God breathed into our very lives,
telling us exactly who we are!
“Very Good” was all that was needed to be declared as you rose from the ground –
the meaningless became meaningful,
the brokenness became beautiful,
and upon such desires of God,
nothing else could explain,
but the point blank fact that we were given
name, an identity: the condition of being one with something declared.
Very good is all that creation heard
above the roar of love in His voice.
Here was a being – created to exist in actuality –
to have life, this was reality –
to have specified significance –
made in the image of God.
All our doing amounts to striving when we are void of being.
God knows exactly who we are.
But, who we are is not what He asked us in the garden,
Who are we is not a mystery to Him.
Instead He calls us in the cool of the day, where…
Where are you?
… Where are you?
Where are you… right now? Where are you… in your being; are you truly seeing or are you just dreaming, maybe screaming or reluctantly revealing the true nature of your being?
Where are you?
Are you about your Father’s business or are you about your own?
Are you being in the world or hiding behind your Netflix at home?
Are you more worried about the souls you meet or where you left your phone?
Are you preoccupied with your earthly kingdom or kneeling before your Heavenly Father’s throne?
Are you feeding the poor or are you ready to cast the first stone?
Are you about being or are you just doing things on your own?
Where are you?
The truth, as real as creation, whispers that
you are a human being, not a human doing.
So don’t equate your self-worth what you do in life.
You aren’t what you do.
If you are what you do, then when you don’t… you fail.
We were designed by God for God as a being. To be with Him.
Until we connect with that purpose we will never be satisfied.
For it is God who establishes us. It is God who has anointed us. It is God who has breathed life into us. He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He washed our sin away, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. – Titus 3:5 (NIV)
Anna Kristina Schultz
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