Busy-Busy

For a month and a half—besides all my regular teaching, editing, and pastoring, Kim and I remodeled and moved to our new house—I worked twelve-to-sixteen hours a day, seven days a week for a month and a half. I broke the Sabbath commandment, my cherished prayer time fell away, and I lived on auto-pilot. Anyone may put in those kinds of hours for a few days or weeks. But a month and a half of focused intensity only on getting through each long day left me physically shaking and psychologically numb.

It gave me a new perspective.

For that month and a half I could see and feel how many people think of God—if they think of him at all—as a side option to life, something called “religion.” In that driven, preoccupied life, I deeply sensed how easily and irrevocably a person could not necessarily reject God but simply not have the time or interest anymore.

The most surprising thing to me is how hard it was to get back into my previous extended prayer time. Drivenness creates ruts. And ruts are hard to get out of.

The second thing that came clear to me is that to maintain an extended daily prayer time, a person needs to go beyond decision. One must have a particular desire for intimacy with God or a vision for their participation in the Kingdom.

The third thing that struck me (for the umpteenth time in life) is how so many people live their lives on busy autopilot. Even their days off are busy. And when they retire, they tell how busy they are. I suspect it’s a mindset that creates its own reality.

I am led back to asking my perennial question: What is ultimately important in life? Each person’s answer to that is what most determines their response or indifference to God, particularly a life in Christ.

Looking beyond all the gray areas of life, Saint Augustine well said, “There can only be two basic loves . . . the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God.”

In this past year, which has been your most basic love?

God, search my heart and show me yours.

photo credit: Mat Mie | freeimages.com