Crazy Busy

I recently met up with sweet Jennie McKay to pick apart her brain on balancing the 3 M's that I spoke about previously. She gave me some great insight and encouragement. She also suggested some great resources that have been very beneficial to her family. One of them being a book, Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung.

This book was packed full of great advice. Most of it is common sense but I was able to see "busyness" in a whole new light. Like stated in a previous post, busyness is something I have always struggled with, but I never realized that busyness could be dangerous. I know that sounds quite dramatic but when you think about busyness and how it has the power to rob us of our joy, rob our hearts from intimacy and cover up the rot/sin in our life, it then becomes a much more serious thing than we once thought.

When we pack our schedules so tightly it can make life stressful, ripping from us the joy that we once found from doing most of these things that keep us busy. It also, robs our hearts from intimacy with people. When we are constantly on the go and running from place to place, it leaves little room for us to invest in people.... most importantly our families. And if these things aren't scary enough, being so busy has the ability to cover up the sin in our life.

The other day I opened my pantry and was immediately hit with an awful smell. I attributed it to a dirty diaper I had thrown in the garbage, but after taking out the trash I quickly realized it was not the diaper I was smelling. After investigating, I realized it was a bag of sweet potatoes. The rotting potatoes that I found didn't happen overnight. It was a daily process due to neglect. Then bam... the smell made me do something about it. Hopefully we will recognize the sin/rot in our lives before the bam moment. Being crazy busy though, helps us easily cover up and/or push to the side a sin that we may or may not think is a big deal. Unfortunately for some, too much neglect leads to a rank smell that becomes evident to all. We must guard our lives from being so busy that covering up sin is not an option.

We can be encouraged though that our only perfect example, Jesus, was busy as well. If we love God and want to serve others we will be busy. Being busy in and of itself is not bad.. its how we manage or don't that is. Jesus was busy. He had people to heal, people to teach, people to dine with... he had lots of things to do! Even with all the demands from everyone (come here! heal me! teach me!), He stayed on His mission and was driven by the Father. Jesus knew there was a difference between all the good things he could do and how they were not necessarily the things he ought to do.

The story of Mary and Martha is always so convicting. I definitely am a Martha.... to a fault. What she was doing wasn't wrong. The things she was doing were necessary: preparing food, making sure the guests were comfortable, etc. These were good things, but they weren't the best. We must evaluate our tasks. The things that keep us busy may not be bad things. In fact, most of what we do are probably good, Christ honoring things. But are they best? If we are stretching ourselves so thin that all we've got to give God and our family are leftovers, then what we are doing isn't best. 

And the concept that is the most obvious but not always the easiest sums up this book perfectly: "Jesus is the only thing that can pull us away from being crazy busy. We won't say, "No" to more craziness until we say, "Yes" to more of Jesus."