In the Closet: Keeping Secrets with God in a not-so-secret world
Essay 4: Busybody
Eleven years ago, in the great year of 2009, my husband and I were poor paupers, two years removed from the lower standards of living the midwest provided. We had moved to Denver a couple years prior, renting a one-bedroom apartment just barely on our feeble paychecks. Now I was pregnant and had quit my job, and we were moving to the southwest corner of the state so he could begin managing a store for his company.
The first thing to do was find a place to live. We were a little horrified to realize it was going to be even more expensive to live in our new town, but we called up a local real estate agent and crossed our fingers anyway.
I don’t remember his name, but he had balding red hair and a defatigable attitude, promising us he’d find the perfect place for us. I sat in the backseat of his car and my husband in the front as the man showed us several hopeless options, from a house with dirt floors (two-hundred thousand dollars, a real fixer-upper) to tiny mountain cabins built as second homes for the wealthy (three-hundred thousand dollars and an hour’s drive from his work).
After a day or so of house-searching, I think our new friend realized we weren’t ready or even able to saddle ourselves to a mortgage, so we made the most of our hunt, chatting in the car, becoming the kind of fast friends whose two-day relationship was coming to an amiable close.
He mentioned we could find him on Facebook if ever we should wish to resume the real estate search. We had laughed–surely we could just call him on the phone! Surely he didn’t think his business had much to do with social media! Somehow, in our short encounter, he had divulged he was a Christian, and I will never forget what he said after that:
Facebook is going to change everything. It is going to change the way we do business, the way we do life.
He specifically mentioned he thought Facebook would, in the future, be the biggest tool the world has ever known for spreading the Gospel.
Eleven years later, I can see the first part of his prediction is true. Personally and professionally, social media platforms have become the arena where communication takes place, where proud homeowners pose in front of their new purchase, letting the whole world know. We can broadcast our life, make it a commercial for everything we think worthwhile. Everyone can see who has bought a house, how much they paid for it, where they bought it, how happy they are. It advertises a lifestyle and promotes the idea that success is within reach, that there is no higher pursuit than that of self-actualization. Our posts recommend and testify; they are the ultimate tool for word-of-mouth advertisement. We are glossier online, and everyone knows the advantages of making a good impression.
But as far as spreading the Gospel? What ground have we gained in the going-into-all-the-world command, the Matthew 28 instruction of Jesus? Has Facebook made our lives as Christians attract such attention that all the peoples of the earth are yearning to know Jesus? Has it broadened our worldview, has it opened our hearts to give ourselves generously over to the work of making disciples? Or have we, via the internet, “gone into all the world” and made nothing more of it than a show of our good side, the one that is internet-worthy?
I would counter that nothing is more anti-Gospel than self-promotion and giving the whole world access to every part of our lives, personally and professionally.
This is life as we know it, and yet it is a far cry from the life Christians are called to lead.
1 Thessalonians 4:11
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands…
2 Thessalonians 3:11-12
We hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.
Paul exhorts–he urges the Thessalonians to make it their ambition, their dream, you could say, to put their hand to the plow and remain steadfast and single-minded in their worship. The word ambition in the Greek means something like a chief desire or something we yearn with eagerness to attain. It is a crucial marker of believers, that they find their satisfaction in God and no one else. They love living a quiet life.
How often have I checked out from this real life, let my hands slip to my device, looking for respite from the work to which I’ve been called? How many times have I made it my ambition to lead anything but a quiet life?
Don’t be a busybody, Paul pleads. Don’t you dare get in the way of yourself.
We’re to endeavor to live lives free of people pleasing, gossip, and strife by giving Loud a cold shoulder. Yet nowhere is this less apparent than in our very day in age!
As I wrote this chapter I was made aware of a promotion on Twitter for authors seeking representation for book projects. I hadn’t been on Twitter in nine years, but the opportunity intrigued me, so I logged on and pitched my book idea.
The entire day I obsessed over checking the analytics. I grew irritable when my kids tried to distract me from the event. I was discouraged when, ultimately, I realized my efforts were in vain. Not one publisher gave me even so much as a wink. I had, in the end, wasted my day and ignored my kids over a vague promise that my work “might” be considered. It would have been better if I’d spent the day writing (something I love to do) rather than worrying.
I only tasted dissatisfaction for one day, but the bootcamp lesson wasn’t wasted on me. I wonder if our whole trouble with “putting ourselves out there” is a matter of us getting in our own way.
I confess, I am desperate for the disciplined life. I want to make myself useful, productive. I don’t want to waste time, but inevitably, I do.
Those Thessalonians, those people who were looking forward to Christ’s return–they didn’t have a clue we would be here, thousands of years down the road, fighting the same battles with our flesh.
Some of them figured life didn’t matter too much, since Jesus would be back any minute.
Get to work, Paul was saying. No, seriously, get to work.
Work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
We are to be quiet, and by being quiet, set an example. Our example will win the respect of outsiders.
And setting a quiet, disciplined example of how to live this life? Facebook can’t quite do it justice.
