Have you ever felt like you were so busy you couldn't possibly do anything else and then someone asked you to do something and you foolishly said yes, thinking all the while, "There is no way I am going to get this done!". And have you ever gotten annoyed with yourself for writing a run-on sentence? Anyway, my point is, most, if not all of us, have probably faced a point in our lives where we were so busy we couldn't think straight anymore. The only thing we could think clearly is, "I'm so busy, I have no idea how I am ever going to get all of this done!"
There are work deadlines. There are kids soccer games. There are meals to be prepared. There are household chores that need to be done. And then we lump in church and youth group and Sunday school and family devotions and quiet times and AWANA and potlucks and Bible studies. And somehow, we convince ourselves that this is how life is supposed to be. So we can only experience happiness in busyness.
Am I hitting close to home for anyone yet? Cuz I sure know what it is to be that busy. I know what it is to work 12-14 hour days and then try to find time to have good conversations with friends/family/roommates and have a meaningful quiet time with God and still somehow get 8 hours of sleep in. By the way, it's not possible. Most of the important things end up getting woefully neglected in those instances. It's hard to focus on anything and certainly nothing is getting done well, but hey, this is my mission in life so I must remain this active.
I took a course through my home church's Sunday school that some of you may be familiar with, the Nav 2:7 course. I've gone through books one and two. If your aren't familiar with it, I'll give a brief description: it's a discipleship course that is designed to help build patterns in the life of a Christian that will encourage spiritual growth. It incorporates memorizing Bible verses, having a daily quiet time with God, building prayers lists, and some assignments that are geared toward helping you understand the importance of these disciplines in your life.
The second book has an assignment wherein the student is expected to take half a day at least alone with God. And this is meant to be completely alone time, not going to spend time with other people and talk about God. It's just you, God, your Bible, and your journal. Maybe some snacks and water, possibly some music, but really this should be very focused on just spending time in the Bible letting God speak to you.
I had done this before and it had been one of my favorite disciplines in college (the first time around, in case you were wondering). I would go spend time walking around campus, stopping randomly to read my Bible, pray, journal, whatever. Just having a date with Jesus. It was phenomenal. And I learned and grew a lot. But somewhere along the line, in all the busyness of life, I managed to walk away from that. So when we had to do it for class, I was really excited about it. But it felt like kind of a flop afterward. I knew I had spent time with God, and I knew we had talked some things out, but it didn't feel as fulfilling as it had once upon a time.
I figured it had something to do with age and not being as focused on feelings as I once had been. After all, faith is not a feeling. I just decided I would chalk it up to a change in me and move on about my life. And I did. I moved on with my busy life, rarely taking time to spend more than a few minutes alone with God, and continuing to fill my time with the "ministry God had called me to."
But I had neglected to look at the root cause of my dissatisfaction. I just figured it wasn't a satisfying time with God because I wasn't supposed to feel satisfied. Remember, faith is not a feeling. I justified my lack of passion with such truths. But that truth was misapplied. No, faith is not a feeling. But sometimes I think we get so engrossed in that we dismiss a lack of satisfaction as just a normal part of our experiences with God. And maybe they are, but my lack of an enjoyable morning with God had more to do with my improper focus than it did on just having one of those days where you don't feel like anything big happened.
I didn't realize that I had exchanged a fulfilling walk with God for a busy life of what I considered to be service. And God couldn't tell me that because my mind was so full of the chaos and demands and questions of my day to day life that I couldn't hear Him anymore.
It took a long time for me to realize that. I didn't recognize that I wasn't hearing God. I figured everything was fine and that I would eventually come out of this phase. No problem. He'd brought me through bigger things before, certainly He could keep me going in the same direction and everything would be fine. But it wasn't. No really.
I was so engrossed in my busy life, my acts of service to others, that I didn't realize I was defeating myself. And God had to show me that. But the only way to show me that was to pull me out to the wilderness. I've mentioned the wilderness a few times before. It's been kind of a theme. Wyoming is beautiful. I love it here. But I am really out in the middle of nowhere. I can't just run to the store real quick because I need something. I have to plan out when I actually have time to make the 45-60 minute trip to town. It's a good thing. It's a painful thing.
I'm far from home. I know very few people. I can't just run to town anytime. And my cell phone service is terrible. The internet is not consistent in my room so if I want to email or blog or check Facebook, I actually have to plan that into my day too. And based on this, I bet you're starting to think I'm miserable. Let me reassure you just the opposite is true. I have never been so fulfilled.
God took away every opportunity to be too busy to spend time with Him. He took me out of my job, out of my apartment, out of my city, out of my state, away from my family, away from my friends, and plopped me down here. When He got me here, just to make sure, He dropped one of my classes for me... we were supposed to be taking two similar classes this semester. Due to the way the instructor prepared the second one, the first one moved to the time slot of the second and there was nothing available to me to fill that first time slot. So that was two more hours in my week that I had to figure out a way to fill. Freak out moment!
And because He has a sense of humor, He answered one of my prayers in a very unique way. I was praying for an assignment in one of my classes because we hadn't had one yet and I wanted more to do to keep myself busy... Oh, we got an assignment alright. And the class was cancelled for the day so I went back and did the assignment and still had time for a nap. Yup, God wanted me to learn something....
So I had been honest with several people here that I am struggling with the pace. I'm not homesick. I'm not exactly bored. I'm just not busy. And I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to live life when I'm not so busy I can't think. God had been working on that in my heart for a while, but it all came to a head yesterday when the speaker in chapel talked about busyness. He quoted Oswald Chambers: "The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is service for Jesus.". Talk about a 2x4 to the face! That was exactly what I had been struggling against. I had been so busy at home doing everything I thought I was supposed to be doing that I was no longer having meaningful time with the Lord. And I was becoming more and more unhappy.
We had just learned John 15:4 for one of my classes: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.". Same verse came up in chapel. The point was that unless we are spending time with God every day and getting alone with Him, we are not going to grow and bear fruit. No one is going to know that we are Christians unless we are spending time with God letting Him work in us to make us more like Himself. And the service we do for Him is meaningless unless we are spending time with Him, making sure our focus is always on Him.
So after hearing the message over and over and over again: "Stop worshipping busyness," I finally had to lay it down, stop striving with God, begging Him for more to do, and just start abiding in Him. One of my instructors defined abiding as being at home with Jesus. I
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