doing and being

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”  But you were unwilling...(Isaiah 30:15)

Years ago a good friend of mine—seeing the busyness and chaos of my life—asked me if I was a human doing or a human being.  “Because I have a suspicion,” he said, “that you were created to be a human being.”  And of course he was right.  Why is it so easy to lose our way in this world, and begin to think that our value and our worth are determined by what we do, rather than by who we are—or rather whose we are?  It is such an easy trap to fall into, which is probably why God felt it necessary to remind us—in these verses in Isaiah—that our salvation and our worth is not dependent on what we do, or on how well we do it.  It is not dependent on how well we perform, what we achieve, or who thinks we’re wonderful.  It is dependent solely on God’s great love and mercy.  Once we remember that truth, and really believe it, then, and only then, do we have a real possibility of moving from human doing to human being.