One of the stories which followed my
parents throughout their married lives is one which took place at a choir
social. Mom had mixed a churn of ice cream and dad sat on the back porch in a
large circle of men, churning and talking. Soon the circle began to thin as the
churning got hard, showing that the ice cream was ready. But dad just kept on
churning. Finally, everyone but dad was gone and he decided that something must
be wrong with the ice cream in his churn. He opened up the cylinder and looked
inside. All of the ingredients were there, but he and my mom had forgotten one
little thing – the dasher. He could have churned all night and not had any ice
cream. He was doing something – but he wasn’t accomplishing anything.
We can easily confuse being busy with
being effective. Doing something for God is not the same as accomplishing
something for God. We can churn all the time but accomplish nothing because we
don’t have a dasher, a purpose. We cannot measure our Christian lives by how busy
we are, but by what purpose is guiding our lives.
One of my favorite stories about Jesus is
found in Mark 1:29-39. Jesus is in Capernaum where He has taught the people
gathered at the synagogue. He has healed a man tormented by an evil spirit,
Simon’s mother-in-law, and many others. The whole town gathered at His door for
Him to touch them, to help them, to heal them. Jesus is literally surrounded
with opportunities to do good. But
listen to what happens next:
(Mark 1:35-38) Very early in the morning,
while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a
solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him,
and when they found him, they exclaimed: "Everyone is looking for
you!" Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else-- to the nearby
villages-- so I can preach there also. That is why I have come."
Early the next morning, He gets away by Himself
and prays. The disciples find Him and exclaim, “Everyone is looking for you! There is much to be done! You can be busy
for the rest of the day!” But Jesus tells them that He will not go back to
the good things He can do in Capernaum. Through prayer He has renewed His sense
of purpose. He must walk away from the busyness of good things that He may do
the most important thing – preaching the good news in other towns.
Jesus didn’t churn without a dasher. He knew the difference between busyness and
living with a God-given purpose. So must we.