Do you think that Jesus was too busy for His Father? I know, dumb question, right? We know full well that Jesus took time to go off to solitary places to be alone with His Father ("Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." Mark 1:35). He would wake up early enough knowing the "busy" day He had before Him. Do we take the time to intentionally be with the Father. Or are we just so consumed with busyness that God takes a backseat to our list of priorities?
One of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, wrote a book called Making All Things New. His thoughts really made me think about this issue of busyness. I would like to share some of his thoughts with you. The following paragraphs are excerpts from Making All Things New. I hope that this will help each of us realize the danger in leading lives filled with busyness, but not God.
(Bolded words are my additions.)
One of the most obvious characteristics of our daily lives is that we are busy. We experience our days as filled with things to do, people to meet, projects to finish, letters to write, calls to make, and appointments to keep. Our lives often seem like overpacked suitcases bursting at the seams. In fact, we are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, and unrealized proposals. There is always something else that we should have remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit. Thus, although we are very busy, we also have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligations.
The strange thing, however, is that it is very hard not to be busy. Being busy has become a status symbol. People expect us to be busy and to have many things on our minds. Often our friends say to us, "I guess you are busy, as usual," and mean it as a compliment. They reaffirm the general assumption that it is good to be busy. In fact, those who do not know what to do in the near future make their friends nervous. Being busy and being important often seem to mean the same thing. Quite a few telephone calls begin with the remark, "I know you are busy, but do you have a minute?" suggesting that a minute taken from a person whose agenda is filled is worth more than an hour from someone who has little to do.
In our production-oriented society, being busy… has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves.
Sometimes it seems as if our society has become dependent on the maintenance of this busyness. What would happen is we stopped being busy? If the urge to be entertained so much, to travel so much, to buy so much, to go out with our friends, talk on the phone, play sports, etc., no longer motivated our behavior, could our society as it is today still function? The tragedy is that we are indeed caught in a web of false expectation and contrived needs. Our busyness fills our external and internal lives to the brim. It prevents the Spirit of God from breathing freely in us and thus renewing our lives.
One of the most notable characteristics of being busy is that it fragments our lives. The many things to do, to think about, to plan for, the many people to remember, to visit, or to talk with, the many causes to attack or defend, all these pull us apart and make us lose our center. Being busy causes us to be “all over the place,” but seldom at home. One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless. “All these other things” keep demanding our attention. They lead us so far from home that we eventually forget our true address, that is, the place where we can be addressed by God.
MAKING ALL THINGS NEW: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life. Copyright © 1981 by Henri J. M. Nouwen
