The cult of busyness

When was the last time you heard someone say, ‘I’ve just got too much time on my hands. What will I do with it?’ We glory in our busyness.  ‘I’d love to take that on’, we say, ‘but I’m just too busy’.  No one ever challenges such a declaration.  After all ‘idle hands are the devil’s workshop’!  We are driven to ‘keep busy’, to do at the expense of be.  Is it possible that God is calling us to reorder our priorities? GK Chesterton wrote, “It is the happy man that does the useless things; the sick man is not strong enough to be idle.” He wasn’t promoting laziness. He was promoting enjoying life as opposed to just being busy. A friend said recently, ‘Am I enjoying life too much?’ He must have had a reason for saying that, but as close as I could tell, he wasn’t making merry until the wee hours of the morning. He was just enjoying his life.  The answer is, ‘No, you can’t enjoy life too much.’J If we listen to God he will give us seasons of quietness (Sabbath worship) to refresh us and make us available for his will and work. Even ministry is meant to be refreshing! (John 4:32) I was reminded at a church campout recently how badly we need & how refreshing old fashioned fellowship is; sitting around campfires, cooking and hiking together. I went to the pool and threw kids into the air until I was exhausted and they were delighted. I thought I heard a still small voice whisper in my ear, ‘Slow down and live’.