Do
“Whoever hears these words of Mine, and does them, is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not do them, is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it fell, and great was its fall.”*
These are the last words Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount. In the story, both men heard the same words and knew the same things. The difference between building on the rock and building on the sand has nothing to do with knowledge; it’s whether or not one does something about it.
In this period of mass information, we are bombarded every day by news, advertisements, opinions, and imperatives from countless voices. We can’t possibly do something about all the information we digest. We can’t donate to the Red Cross’s work in Nigeria while writing an email to a Senator as we fill out a crossword puzzle, change our minds about the latest environmental legislation, and take advantage of the 50% off sale at the mall. It’s just too much. So we develop the habit of digesting information without doing anything about it. We hear about the sale at the mall, but we don’t go. We hear about the earthquake in Nigeria, and maybe even feel bad for a moment, but we don’t do anything about that, either.
Even the material we intentionally digest like books and podcasts is soon forgotten and relegated to the ever-growing pile of unapplied thoughts. Everything fades into the background like white noise, and it becomes almost impossible to ever change – to do anything about a new idea we encounter. We may feel convicted or inspired by something, but we are overrun by so many new ideas, it is soon forgotten.
We go to conferences, read books, listen to sermons and messages, and think we’re growing because we’re hearing all the right things. But digesting new content may just be an elegant way of avoiding the actual work of implementing what we already know. We’re building our house on the sand – something we will only realize after the wind and rain have blown it all to pieces.
Our primary need is not more information. Our primary need is to spend less time cramming more information into our brains and more time doing something about what we already know.
What’s the next right thing? Stop reading and do it.
J.
*Matthew 7:24-27
April 5, 2022