The Sacred Disorder

We are a people intoxicated with productivity. It has led us into transactional relationships—with ourselves, with others, and even with God. In the process, we have lost beauty, peace, and gratitude—the very things we are working so hard to attain. Yet the harder we chase them, the more they seem to elude us.

This curse comes wrapped in a single word: efficiency.

Our pursuit of efficiency has caused us to devalue the faces of other people. We hunch over our devices and keyboards, or we look away, afraid of entering the messiness of another person’s life. Yet that very mess is where the greatest value in the universe is found.

In our rush to become more efficient, we step on faces as though they were stepping stones toward the very thing we long for ourselves: to be seen, to be known, and to be loved.

A phone will not love you.

A keyboard will not hug you.

An efficient job, well done, will not make you more human.

And money—that prize waiting at the end of the road—always leaves us hungrier than it leaves us fulfilled.

So why do we keep chasing this elusive carrot on a stick?

Because everyone else is doing it.

Yet if we are ever to find the joy, peace, love, and life for which our souls ache, we must enter the mess of our own hearts.

The doorway is called quiet.

The room is called stillness.

The activity is called nothingness.

And there, if we are willing to stay long enough, we may hear the soft sound of sandaled feet.

This outcome cannot be manufactured through efficiency. Relationships refuse to be optimized. Trying to control them is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. They are intentionally messy because they are infinitely valuable.

Value placed in careless hands is like pearls before swine.

The highest value in life is this:

To be known and to know.

To be understood and to understand.

To be loved and to love.

If I were to ask you when you last experienced these things, I suspect I already know the answer.

Consider this writing an invitation.

Do something different than what you have been doing.

Step out of the car and walk instead.

Step out of the air conditioning and into the fresh air.

Take another path.

Slow down.

Enter the messiness of other people’s lives.

Abandon efficiency for a moment.

And there, in the sacred disorder of relationship, you may find yourself hearing the whispers of the Divine:

“I love you.”

“I see you.”

“I know you.”

“You are Mine.”

Nothing else will satisfy.