One of the worst places I encounter ‘work-guilt’ is at my desk. The place where I research, absorb, sift through information. It’s strewn with post-it notes and tea mugs. Pens behind the ear and Kleenexes in the pocket.

It’s the place where I soak things into my brain so that I can output them into powerpoints, exams, and assignments. It’s the place where sermons are written and theology is sifted.

It’s a good place and one of my favorite places.

But, there is guilt attached to this place. Guilt because it’s not a place of doing.

Doing is active, out of your chair, in the classroom, in the boardroom. Doing is meetings and conversations and emails. Or if not those things, the doing is laundry and phone calls and tidying and recycling out to the curb.

Doing is not sitting and absorbing, is it?

Our outward actions can reflect our inward realities. Our attitudes reflect our belief systems.

Doing is better than not doing.

Action is better than inaction.

If I’m contemplating then I’m not contributing.

And our ourward life reflects our spiritual insides.

If I’m not ministering then I’m not learning about God.

Silence and solitude isn’t doing anything, really, is it?

Reading scripture’s sole purpose is to spur us into action.

(Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you’re looking around you thinking ‘how did she know?!?’)

I imagine many of you reading this would send encouraging words to me if you could. Words like, “but the preparation is important, it makes you a better teacher!” “If you’re not prepared, you can’t do your job.”

All true. All important words.

Then why is it we cannot seem to reconcile the importance of preparation in our spiritual lives?

We give preparation a nod, knowing that it’s important to be in God’s presence and in his word. That we need to know in order to effectively do.

But how many of us secretly don’t extend grace, or even, judge ourselves and others for taking the time to be spiritually still?

And, dare I say it, that the doing of ministry without spending time being available to God in our interior selves, is, in fact, hubris?

Where does our motivation, our sustaining, our cleansing and sanctifying come from if not from time spent with Christ? The Jesus who calls us to come and sit with him in the garden?

I can sense some ruffled feathers. ‘But we see Christ so explicitly within the context of service and action.’ Yes, Christ is there in those times, absolutely.

But I’m not questioning where he is, but where we are, spiritually, when the only time we seek him is on the move?

What are we missing?

Why feel guilty for not doing when Christ modeled for us the importance of being. Withdrawing before ministry and during, despite the demands on his time. How much more do we need time with the Father than him?

Or do we think we don’t need it, even if he did……

Yeah.

Although they might not think about it, the time I spend at my desk is invaluable to my students. And it’s invaluable to me. I am more focused, prepared, mindful of these young women and men and the places in their lives where God’s word intersects in new ways.

And I am better for them.

And, honestly, I am better for me. There is a peace that comes with preparation. Knowing that I have offered who I am in preparation for offering what I have. Knowing that I have done what I can to play a part in what Christ will do in and through me.

So maybe, just maybe, we can release the guilt of supposed inactivity? Realizing that our inner transformation helps us to better live a life centered on Christ. That Christ modeled for us what it meant to look upward before we look onward.

Maybe I can sit at my desk and breath a sigh of ‘well done’ and close the laptop lid, content. Guilt free and knowing that I have done good and important work, sitting right here.

And maybe this week, we can all sit, breathe in God’s presence, and feel like there’s nothing else that is more worth doing, not one thing.