Doing the Deep Work

A young boy was watching his mother sift through and delete a long list of junk emails on the computer screen.

“This reminds me of the Lord’s Prayer,” the boy said.

“What do you mean?” the mother asked.

“Well, you know,” the boy answered, “the part that says, ‘lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from email.’”

Email. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. YouTube. Pinterest. Wikipedia. Snapchat.

Together, they are weapons — weapons of mass distraction.

You know how it works. You are cooking something on the stove when you hear a ping from your smartphone. You say, “Okay, while that’s cooking, I’ll go see what that notification is about. Oh no, he’s totally wrong! I have to reply to this post … Ha, that cat picture is silly … What a cool video! And that other video in the thumbnail looks interesting, too … That high school guy is totally wrong again! … This Wikipedia article has a lot of cool information.”

Meanwhile, in the kitchen: five-alarm fire.

Most of us react to the beeps and buzzes of our phones with great urgency, like parents responding to a baby’s cry. Although we know that this isn’t healthy or sane, we still do it.

But now, research is showing that we really should make an effort to avoid distractions. When we become lost in social media or email, we lose our ability to focus.

In his Hidden Brain podcast (July 25, 2017), journalist Shankar Vedantam profiles Cal Newport, a computer scientist at Georgetown University and author of a book called Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. Newport believes that we should minimize the problems created by constant interruptions, and he insists that “it’s more urgent than people realize.”

Here’s the problem: When we let emails or Facebook messages guide our workday, we’re weakening our ability to do the most challenging kind of work — what Newport calls “deep work.” This is the work that requires sustained attention, such as writing a report, solving an engineering problem or doing significant research.

The solution to distractions, according to Newport, is to do what we can to set aside long portions of many days to focus on deeper thinking. This means no social media, limited email and strict limits on appointments. The result is a life that is richer and more human than a life of robotically responding to emails and clicking on websites, which is what a lot of us end up doing all day.

In many churches, including here at St. Andrew’s, an announcement appears in the bulletin reminding people to silence their smartphones and any other electronic devices. But for some folks, it’s incredibly difficult to go for an hour without checking messages.  In fact, some of you are doing that right now.

In today’s Old Testament reading, Job does the “deep work” of answering the question of who he is in relation to God.

This is not a question that can be answered by a quick Google search, because it involves deep thinking about what it means to be a human created by God. The challenge that God gives Job is also a challenge to us — one that pushes us to unplug ourselves long enough to ask and answer some deep questions.

There was a childless child psychologist who had quite a few ideas about how to raise well-rounded children, and didn’t hesitate to share them. Whenever he saw a neighbor scolding his kids for some wrongdoing, he would say, “You should love your boys, not punish them.”

One hot summer afternoon the psychologist was doing some repair work on a concrete driveway leading to his garage. Tired out after several hours of work, he laid down the trowel, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and started toward the house. Just then, out of the corner of his eye he saw the neighbor’s boy putting his foot into the fresh cement.

He rushed over, grabbed him, and was shaking him angrily, when the kid’s father in the yard next door said, “Watch it, Doc! Don’t you remember? You must ‘love’ the child!”

At this, he yelled back furiously, “I do love him in the abstract — but not in the concrete!”

Job felt like he was in concrete and that God’s love was very abstract.

The Lord’s ways were mysterious and abstract to Job, but God didn’t remain silent forever. In chapters 38-41, God basically said, “Job, I am here. You are there. Don’t ever be confused about that difference.”

Okay, here’s a little Theology 101. Take a piece of paper and draw a thick line up the middle of it. On one side of the line, write “God.” On the other side, write “My world.” With that line, you’ve just drawn an important piece of the Christian worldview, because only one side of the line is subject to the other.

The line means that God is all-powerful, we are not. God is infinite, but we have limits. God has purposes that will come to fruition (v. 2), and ours only may if they are in line with God’s pleasure and plans.

Remember all the things that Job lost in Chapter One? His possessions. His home. His children. His wife. Rarely do we hear that it is God’s will for us to lose money. Or lose comfort. Or lose a child. That is hard for us to handle. We want God’s purposes for us to involve giving, not taking.

Or people will often take what they want to see happen, and rubber stamp “God’s will” language onto it. “God told me to …” “God called me to …” “God led me to …” The things that follow those statements are sacred cows to us. But Job would tell us that it is bold indeed to claim such thorough insight into God’s purpose for us.

That’s why the line also means that God is perfectly wise and knowledgeable; we are not (v. 3). The story of Job and his friends is that of several men trying to put together puzzle pieces to form a clear picture of God and to answer the question “Why?”

But some of the pieces were not given to them. They could not reduce Job’s suffering to trite answers, consistent patterns and human understanding.

In that line of knowledge and understanding that divides us and God, human reasoning cannot cross over to ascertain God’s side. Only divine revelation can cross over to our side of the line to give us a clue.

The journey given to Job was not to understand God and his ways. His journey was to continue to respond faithfully to God even though he didn’t have all the pieces to the “Why?” puzzle.

In our passage today, Job confesses that he finally gets it. He has done some deep work and knows both where he is and where God is. There’s a line between them, and he comes to terms with that line. There are times in life when God says, as he did to Job, “I am here, you are there.”

In other words, God is the Creator and we are the created.

We are social animals, created by God to be in relationship with God and with each other. None of us can survive for very long by ourselves, for we need the support and the accountability of others.

Fortunately, God has created a world in which we are wonderfully interconnected. When we go deep for answers, we discover that God is the Creator and that we are created social beings, connected to God and to each other. And when we put the two together, we are doing the deep work that God wants us to do.