Scripture: Matthew 22:1-14
There’s so much that needs to get done! Work is busy with projects, and there are only more projects on the horizon. And the kids’ schedule is starting to fill up with recitals and school events; it’s especially bad because the holidays are coming up. OMG! The holidays are coming up!!
Whew, that pressure builds as fast as my calendar fills. Do you ever feel like that? Or, am I alone in this?
Busyness is a strange topic. You might be different, but I don’t think being busy all the time feels good. It’s stressful. It’s exhausting. To be honest, it leaves me feeling like I’m just not enough.
Not enough for my family.
Not enough to accomplish my goals.
Not enough for God…
But SOMEHOW busyness is a badge of honor. You know what I mean? Think about how you respond to questions like “How have you been?” or “What have you been up to?” How often is the answer something like:
Just keepin’ busy. I’m juggling a couple projects at work. Matt made the basketball team, so we’ve got to get him to practices. Ezra just got his permit. He needs to get those driving hours. Oh, and did I mention Sarah got her first job? She’s saving up for a car. I’m basically an Uber driver after work!
The fact is, it’s good to be productive. God intends for us to produce. Afterall, laziness and sloth are about as far from being virtues as it gets. So if you want to be productive, especially at a high level, the temptation toward busyness is strong. It’s also dangerous.
When I was reflecting on the the Parable of the Wedding Banquet verse 5 jumped out at me: “But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business.” Or we could paraphrase it to say “they didn’t pay attention because they were too busy.”
When it’s so easy for us to be busy all the time, we need to be careful not to worship at the altar of our busy lives! For the rest of this post I’m going to expand on 3 dangers of being too busy. It starts with how busyness can impact our faith.
Busyness replaces God in your life
Jesus started the parable with the words “The kingdom of heaven is like” and then went on to describe a king and his subjects that in the best case blatantly ignored him. There were two types of responses at the beginning: those who were too busy and ignored the King’s invitation, and those actually attacked to servants who brought the invitation!
Imagine if you were invited to a wedding for the son of someone important. Maybe a wealthy client, or potential client. Maybe a politician with power to affect, or help, your life. Would you make time to go? Probably. I would.
You can see how God feels about this too. Notice “the king was enraged”. What this really amounts to is idolatry. In there parable those who ignored the invitation basically told the king he was less important than their fields or business. It’s the same with God.
You’ve been invited by the Creator of everything to spend time with him. You have access, through the Lord Jesus Christ, to reach God through prayer at any time. Have you ever considered that’s like having the President of the United States’ cell phone number, and regular encouragement from him to use it?
I think we forget the significance of what prayer is and take it for granted! When I was a pastor, I saw God pushed out of people’s lives the more busyness worked its way in. It’s my personal experience too.
Your time gets tight, so you put off prayer. You put off reading the Bible, let alone studying it. Then you start missing church. You can just watch it online, right? (For the record, it’s not the same!)
More and more God gets pushed to the back burner. Or, maybe He gets put away entirely. And once busyness has you worshiping at its altar, it starts demanding sacrifice.
Busyness drains your most important resource
Look at two short teachings from Jesus:
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
- Matthew 6:22-23
But the things that come out of a person’s mouth defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts — murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person;
- Matthew 15:18-20a
Without going into too much detail, what holds your attention fills your heart; what fills your heart guides your life!
So your heart is your most important resource, spiritually speaking. What fills it will shape your life. Guide your decisions. Set your priorities.
What does busyness fill your heart with? How does it guide your life?
Do you ever cut corners, or get a little loose with your ethics, and justify it because your just so busy? Maybe a small lie here. Or stealing credit there.
Or maybe you start indulging in sinful escapes, but tell yourself it’s for a season because of your stress from being so busy? Online porn or gambling. No one needs to know… It’s not that big a deal… (check out The Porn Myth by Matt Fradd note: it’s an affiliate link).
Or it could me more “innocent”, like indulging in mindless scrolling or binging on video games or Netflix.
Whatever the case is for you, busyness as an idol will demand sacrifice. And it won’t stop at you.
Busyness spreads its damage around you
If you notice, there is a flow to this process. You’re busy and that busyness squeezes God out of your life and brings you to its altar. Then it starts changing you. Your integrity might start to crack. Your priorities shift. You start missing important events for the kids, because you’re busy. In your stress you lose your temper more often, because you’re busy.
As your priorities shift, and as the stress weighs on you, it will affect the people around you. And, the more important the people around you are the more it will affect them.
You may feel yourself pushing back. You might have “but fill in the blank” responses coming to mind. But it’s just for a season. But it’s just until I get the promotion. The new job. The next milestone.
I get it. Would you mind if I shared a personal story?
When I was an associate pastor, I was bi-vocational. Meaning I had a full-time secular job. I also had a wife who worked full time and 4 children with their activities. I was busy. There was so much to do, and I could justify a lot of it by saying it was for God. Sermon’s and lessons to prepare. Meetings. A desire to expand my own ministry further than the church I served. Starting a doctorate program.
I remember being so stressed it was overwhelming. I would vent about the pressure I was feeling and spout off my to do list to my wife. I needed to find time to prepare an upcoming sermon, to work on a curriculum I was putting together, the Wednesday night lesson, make some YouTube content to launch my own YouTube channel, and somehow find time to spend with my wife and our kids.
Can you guess which part stood out to her? Especially its placement in the list? She said she felt like they were always on the back burner and never the priority. Now she’s my ex-wife.
Obviously more goes into the ending of a marriage than just busyness. And I can tell you that God works even through the most painful parts of life to bring about good. But my busyness is a piece of my part in it. I can tell you from my experience the toll busyness can take on the important people in your life. Busyness is a terrible god. Don’t worship at its altar.
Conclusion
Life can be busy. For most of us, there is a lot we need to do and there is a lot that is left undone. And I admit there is more to being productive without giving in to busyness than can be covered in one blog post. But I can show you where to start.
Notice that he flow of the problem is first busyness pushes God out and becomes the idol in your life. Then busyness it starts to shape your life after its image. Finally, as it shapes you it leads you to hurt those around you.
What you want is for God to be in his rightful place as the Lord of your life; your priority. Then as God has your attention He shapes you into the image of Jesus; we call this discipleship. And from there you become more and more of a blessing to the people around you.
So how do you do this? Spend time with God, and do what He tells you.
Set time to spend with God. Many Christians call this quiet time. And start simple. Pick a time. Read in the Bible for 10 minutes. Pray for 10 minutes. That’s only 20 minutes, and you probably spend more time than that doom scrolling on your phone.
Make it a priority to go to Church, in person.
And as you hear from God, do what He says. Meaning, if you read something in the Bible that you need to obey, do it. If you feel God moving you to do something, confirm it with the Bible and other wise Christians, and do it. This will start to work you through the process we want: becoming more like Jesus.
Almighty Father,
So often we pretend to be strong, but we’re weak. I pray for everyone that reads this. Help us to keep You as the priority You are. Keep us from the temptation to worship at the altar of busyness. Set our goals and priorities to be inline with Yours.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen
Do you struggle with busyness? Have any tips to help us? Share them in the comments.
