Our busyness is our sin

I’ve realized lately that not only is my busyness annoying to others and painful to me, it’s actually proving to be the root of my sin. Not all my sin of course, but those that are most present, those that are most detrimental. So, I’m done. I’m done letting busyness not only control my life, but hinder my walk with Christ and my ministry to people. I’m done letting my busyness hurt people. My promise to myself is this: “I’m done living off coffee and energy drinks.”

The fact is we are all busy people. Each of us find a way to busy ourselves with something, but mostly we do so with our work and the pursuit of “success”… whatever that means. For years I thought that my busyness was due to me not being a good manager of time. I remember the day I bought a palm pilot… THAT was about as effective as a one armed paper hanger! I tried to remedy my problem but no matter how much I “planned” I was still way too busy. The next logical place for me to go was to think that I was just lazy. I need to sleep 4 hours a night and then I will have enough time to do my job well, keep up with friendships, stay in touch with family, get into the lives of high school students, and have time to just do some things I love to do. I can go on 4 hours of sleep, but then I would have to take back my promise, and use coffee and energy drinks simply as a drug to keep going. We can do that, of course, until it catches up to us and leaves us physically passed out on the ground somewhere!

The fact is most of us find ourselves too busy- not due to an inability to schedule or plan, and not due to us being lazy. Simply put: 24 hours is not enough time in a day for us to completely fulfill every role that we are a part of! Rather, we are too busy because we don’t know how or when to say no. More than that, we feel a level of guilt that almost won’t allow us to say no. We find ourselves at the end of the day being guilt- free because we said yes to everybody. Or we feel guilty, because we said yes to one person but that forced us to say no to another so now we feel like we owe something to them. So who do we cheat? Who do we disappoint? The thing we fail to realize is that in the process of this guilt and juggling we are losing ourselves along the way.

The best illustration I’ve heard about this is one used by Andy Stanly. Andy has a book called “Choose to Cheat” which I haven’t read but I would love to have the opportunity soon! He addresses this issue and tells us that at some point in time we must choose to cheat somebody because of our busyness. The illustration he uses goes like this: Suppose I walked up to you with a large rock and said “can you hold this for a while?”. Mentally and physically you would have the ability to hold the rock, but after a while your physical ability would fail you. After a while you would no longer have the ability to hold it and so you would drop the rock and shatter it. At that point I might ask you “why did you drop the rock?”. My question infers that something happened at that point in time that caused you to drop the rock. However, it wasn’t that particular point in time that caused you to drop it, rather it was the process of you holding it for so long. Andy would compare this to a husband or wife walking out on their spouse one day because they had been neglected. The natural question is “what happened? Why did you leave me today?”. While the correct answer is not that something happened that day or even that week, but it was the process of our sin of busyness affecting that relationship. The point is that when we let busyness become our sin, we start to slowly hurt those people closest to us, until one day they can no longer hold this rock that we asked them to hold.

It’s funny because we seem to ask those closest to us to hold the rock for the longest amount of time. We usually ask those that are most loving and loyal to us to hold that rock. We tend to be more loyal to our bosses, our critics, our classes, our teachers and people who really aren’t that loyal to us. Those that are most loyal to us- whether it be a spouse, a best friend, a girlfriend/ boyfriend, a mom/dad- we tend to neglect and be less loyal to these people in our lives. Doesn’t that seem backwards to you? Doesn’t that seem sinful to you? Philippians 2:4 says: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2 can be used either as a justification to neglect those closest to us, or as a conviction for us to consider the interests or the feelings of those closest and most dear to us as more than our own. Spending more time with your boss than with your wife is really you considering your own interests isn’t it? Spending more time with your friends than with your own family is the same right? We are more loyal to those less loyal to us and least loyal to those most loyal to us.

Our busyness is our sin because it hurts those closest to us.

Is your faith fragile?

Recently I have been attempting to put together a curriculum for our small groups at DBSM. No sooner than I sat down to write it out did the text slowly start to pick me apart. The main point of the first lesson is: Circumstantial faith is fragile, true faith rests in the person and plan of God. At first glance the statement didn't sink in too deeply, but after studying a text recommended by a book by Andy Stanly, I soon began to see a connection to my own life.

The Accusation:
In the book of Job, Satan sends God an interesting accusation. Satan tells God that the reason there is "no one like Job who is blameless and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil" is because God has put a "hedge around him and his house" (Job 1:9-11). What a smart accusation for Satan to make. Sure Job has great faith, look at the cush life you've given him God!

Satan is pointing out a sad fact, that really applies to a lot of us. Satan is saying that Job's faith is circumstantial, it rests on the things going on around him, not on the person and the plan of God.

The Challenge:
After Satan tells God "stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face", God says: "lets rock, but don't lay a hand on my boy" (Job 1:11-12 my translation:))

God grants Satan the permission to take away Job's "circumstances", but not merely just take them away, but take all that is positive and good and turn it into circumstances that are negative and destructive.

The Attempt:
One right after the other, Satan sends the Sabeans to kill many of Job's servants; then fire falls down and burns all the sheep and the servants there; then the Chaldeans raid on the camels and steal them while killing the servants; only to be ended by a great wind that struck the house where Job's sons and daughters were eating and killed all the young people within it (Job 1:13-19)

Satan takes out Job's property which has to make his heart sink, but when he takes out his children can you imagine his pain? Can you understand his doubt?

The Response:
"Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:20-22)

Job's faith was not dependent on those things going on around him, his faith was dependent on the person and the plan of God.... alone.

Our Response:
Me, me, me, me, me... our response is usually centered around ME. How are MY circumstances making ME feel? How did that affect ME? Did God forget about ME? Is God still in control of MY situation? When I'M making money MY faith is strong... when people like ME I love God more... when MY marriage or relationship is going well I praise God more... When MY coach compliments ME I pray a prayer of thanksgiving. Make no mistake Job was sad, but his faith was unshaken. Doubt was not near him. The name of the Lord was just as mighty as it was the day before. We can live the same way. We can live in a way in which our faith is not based on ANY circumstances around us. We can live in such a way that our faith is based on Him and Him alone. We might not understand what He is doing, but we must know that it is Him who is doing it. Bottom line: Do you trust God? Do you trust in the person and the plan of God? Maybe this is why Jesus would say the GREATEST commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matt 22:37). Circumstantial faith is fragile, true faith rests in the person and plan of God.