As part of our Lent discussions, we have reference being “disordered” multiple times. I was thinking about how we become disordered.
When we think of a disordered life, the first thing that comes to mind is addiction. That is something where a person took something and went waaaaay to far with it. Now their life revolves around it, turning a good thing into a source of pain. The issue with extreme examples is that it disassociates it from our everyday life. We listen to that and say, “well, I’m not a crack head, so I’m not disordered.”
True, but…
Disorder is always at work in our lives, even non-crack heads. We can use other words if you like, such as chaos, entropy, or scope creep. The last one is the one I want to focus on as it is most applicable to everyday life.
Scope creep is a term I learned while doing project management. We would start a project needing to implement 200 customers, then we had to implement 25 more from half way through. Then, about halfway through the project, we were told we had to call and confirm customer satisfaction before we could pass the customer on to customer service. Everything added after the original scope of the project, is scope creep. The problem with scope creep is that work is assigned based on an original assumption. I said the project was achievable based on the information originally presented. A series of small concessions lead to a the project becoming unwieldy and ultimately unsuccessful because we could not properly manage those changes as the train was already moving.
We experience this same thing in our life, small concessions that result in overwhelm, frustration, and a sense of failure.
I have a recent example in my life, it may seem silly, but that is the definition of a “small concession.” It seems silly, so we accept it. Add enough silly little things and you have a straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I started this year with a focus on my sleep. I wanted to get to 7 hours of sleep per night. I was focused on it for like, I don’t know, a week…at most. I got some sleep, felt good. So when I was sitting on the couch with my wife watching Frasier reruns, we were presented with the question, “another episode?” Episodes are 22 minutes long. It was 8:45pm. To get 7 hours of sleep, I have to start my routine no later than 9 pm. I was feeling good through, so I said sure. We watched another episode. I started my routine at roughly 9:15, because nothing goes as planned. Our attention was caught by the cooking show that was on when we logged out of Paramount+ and watched it for 5 minutes. The dogs took longer to potty then normal, etc., etc. That night I got 6.75 hours. I didn’t feel terrible the next day. That’s how sleep works. It’s more like a bank account. Spending just a little more than you save won’t make you broker overnight, but it will in the long run. Since I didn’t feel bad, I agreed to another episode, except we started that one at 9:50 because we didn’t pay attention to the time. Now, after a week or two of those silly little concessions, I’m now averaging 6 hours of sleep per night and I’m exhausted during the day.
That is scope creep in real life. That is how we become disordered. I had a goal to get 7 hours of sleep, but through a series of small concessions, I lost track of my goal and began debiting from my health account. The only way to get back on track is to be disciplined. I have to get back to 7 hrs of sleep a night. I need to deposit back into my account until I’m saving more than I’m spending.
The purpose of Lent, to me anyway, is to focus on reordering our life towards Christ. We start with a memento mori on Ash Wednesday. We remember that we will meet Christ face to face and answer to the lives we have lived. Disorder is how the enemy gets us turned from Christ. It starts small, gets us to concede small things that are not sins. Those concessions add up. Woe to us if we are disordered when we meet Christ. I’m not going to say that he will cast us out, but even those of us saved by His grace will feel an unspeakable shame when we see all that we wasted. I have to be honest, that is one of my greatest fears, to look my savior in the face and feel shame.
If you are dealing with extreme disorder, please seek professional help. If you are dealing with scope creep, utilize this time in the desert to reorder your life towards Christ.
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