I love watching the 4th hour of the Today Show. Hoda and Kathie Lee crack me up, but this morning, I was too busy to watch. Before I rushed out of my house, I took a second to record their show so that I could enjoy it later in the afternoon. I filled the hours between 9-4 with carpools, exercise, meetings and errands. I bumped into a few friends as I scurried around and with every rendezvous, I had the opportunity to answer the question, “How are you doing?”. My answer was the same as so many of yours (I know this, because I have heard it from just about everyone I know); I answered, “I am so busy.”
I say it without thinking. The standard answer of “How are you doing?” used to be, “Fine”, “Great” or even “Hanging in there”, but now it seems everyone defines the state of their affairs with busyness. If I take a moment to really think about why I am so quick to announce that I am busy, I find that I am trying to prove something. I assume I would be judged if I answered with statements of how I am so content or how I am encouraged by what I am learning or how frustrated I am with the sins I am struggling with. Because I don’t want to always be vulnerable and because most people asking the question are really busy and just being polite, I fall in line and use busyness as the most defining characteristic of the life I am living.
To be completely honest, I am not nearly as busy as I used to be, but I still struggle with some pride issues closely linked to the busyness train. Most of the things that busied me up were my efforts to be competitive in the things that the world puts a high value on. I smocked, made designer cookies, ran marathons; I was team mom for the competitive sports that my children participated in. I was involved in lots of bible studies and clubs and I really enjoyed all of it. None of these things are bad things. I was in great shape; my children were well dressed and well fed. I made pocket money and enjoyed the fellowship and teaching in women’s bible studies. My days were crammed full of healthy activities and I was proud of my calendar and appointment book, but I was missing out on so much. There is great emptiness in busyness.
Someone very wise once said, “If the devil can’t make you sin, he will make you busy.” These “good things” I was cramming into my calendar left little room for the “great things”. Society tells us that we have to be involved in so much in order to count. We believe we are terrible parents if we don’t allow our children to participate in all the things that will beef up their resume and make them more attractive to colleges. We burn so much gasoline and down time racing around so that we will just be able to have a toe in the pool of prosperity.
Rearranging our mindset is radical. Going against the grain of what the world tells us is the healthiest, most fulfilling and most profitable will feel and look strange and it might invite criticism, but there are also heaps of peace and joy when we get off the path of dedication to pettiness.
This afternoon when I got home from my BUSY day, I started making dinner. I turned Hoda and KLG back on and in their last segment, they had the food editor on from a parenting magazine. The reason this talented woman was on the show was to help make our lives easier. She led busy moms through a cooking segment where she instructed all the moms who want the best for their families in a way to save time and feed our children a delicious and healthy breakfast. Her “time savers” actually just added more to the schedules of the moms who want to be super mom. Her suggestion was to cook breakfast the night before, channel your inner “master chef” and whip up these goodies: blueberry bars, DIY overnight oatmeal, quinoa with pink apple sauce and banana flax pancakes. I am all for healthy eating and for time savers, but I literally laughed out loud. How does spending 90 minutes creating a refridgerateable gourmet breakfast save time? It shifts time, and in that shift, “gourmet mom” misses time to read or listen to the kids or time with her husband or prayer time with her children, or whatever. I found it blatantly absurd. The children of all the “Gourmet Moms” in America would much rather celebrate 90 minutes of quality time with her in the evening than eat flax seed banana pancakes in the morning. These kids would be just as healthy and happy if they just ate the banana or learned to scramble their own egg.
It is my sincere belief that we are missing out on the greatest blessings because we are filling our days by making “Flax seed banana pancakes”. These pancakes come in all kinds of disguises and they are absolutely healthy by their own definition; they fill us up, but they are filling us up with busyness.
In order to be truly healthy and full, we must feed our spirit. We cannot be who we are created to be if we keep cramming society’s mandates into our schedules. We are not making the best use of our time…. We are just shifting it around.
I promise that there are some things you can let go, and it will not hurt your children. There is an incredible peace that passes understanding when we align our priorities with those that God established for us when He created us.
If Jesus needed time alone with God, and He was perfect and powerful and created time and space, how in the heck do we think we can manage differently? We must make seeking the Lord the top appointment on our calendars. He is a God of Spirit and truth, and therefore, we must schedule time to be quiet and pray and seek the counsel and touch of the Spirit. We must dig into the truth and consume the bread of His word. When we get in His word and allow the Spirit to teach us, we find that He leads us to His passions and that is where we find peace and joy. His passions are so much richer than society’s benchmarks.
We have the time. “The devil may not lead us into sin, but he sure will make us busy.” Oh dear friends, stop the starvation. Life is meant to be so much better than flax seed banana pancakes.
“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:33 (NLT)
“God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6 (NLT)
“But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” Luke 5:16 (NLT)