Remain. Linger. Tarry. Persist. Pause. Continue. Endure. Last. Live. Abide. Dwell. Rest. Reside. Squat. Stick around. Stay put. Camp out. Cling to. Put down roots. Hang on for dear life.
This is the main task of a disciple of Jesus. Then comes the fruit. Being with always precedes doing for. Intimacy and connection are the horses pulling the cart of worship and service. Never the other way around.
Don’t get me wrong, you can fake it for a while. Much of our church culture is certainly set up to support and encourage that. I’ve certainly done that, and probably for long seasons of life, if I’m honest.
But it won’t last. You’ll burn out. You’ll run out of juice. Your cart will get stuck in the mud. You’ll get angry, or frustrated, or disappointed, or disillusioned. Or E) All of the above.
Being before doing runs against the grain of our success-driven, productivity-obsessed culture. For us, at least in our wildly creative imaginations, our doing is our being. Our productivity is how we prove who we are. But then, the Kingdom of God has always run against the grain of every human culture throughout history. The Kingdom of God has always invited us to shift into a new way of being human, not a new way of doing good things.
