Combat Busyness through Faithfulness
Stressed, overwhelmed, burnt-out, just too busy. These are a few of the answers that most people tend to respond with when giving an honest assessment to the question “How are you doing?”. Can you relate? Maybe that is how you feel currently, or perhaps you have been existing in a season of “busyness” for a long period of time and frankly you are exhausted.
The list can feel endless at times of things that vie for our attention, time, and resources… Going to school, performing at work, raising kids, being involved at church, running errands, being a good friend, or even managing a chronic health issue. Life in this world can feel overwhelming, so as Christians how are we to approach the management of our time with the frequent temptation and frustration of being exhausted and overwhelmed?
We combat busyness with faithfulness. We overcome laziness by working hard as unto the Lord, trusting the results to Him. We avoid burnout by serving in the strength He supplies.
In Matthew 11, Jesus addresses the people who are overburdened by the Law and the additional requirements that the pharisees have heaped upon them, and He says “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. I find Jesus’s choice of example here fascinating. A yoke is an agricultural tool that would bind animals together to more effectively pull a plow or wagon. It was a tool used in very demanding physical labor. So, Jesus’s call to the people is not to follow Him for a life of ease and relaxation, He is not saying that by trusting in him all of your troubles and weariness in this world will disappear, but He is promising that the work takes on a new character… it is “light” or “well suited” for us because he has taken the burden that we had no hope of carrying, upon Himself.
We live in a fallen world, and the effects of sin and the curse will result in times of difficulty, weariness and suffering, but our anchored hope is sure that this current light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory.
So, in the meantime, the key is faithfulness… faithful submission to the lordship of Christ in every aspect of our lives. A position which protects us from a self-righteous, performance-based expectation that results in our failure and frustration, and frees us to glorify God as we faithfully love and serve others in the spheres of influence and life stage He has blessed us with.
The root of the problem then is not that we are “too busy”, but that we continue to rely upon our own strength and capacity to bring about the results we desire. So don’t simply strive to “manage your calendar better” or “cut back on your commitments” in your fight against busyness, but embrace the opportunities you have as an ambassador of Christ to glorify God and proclaim the gospel as you faithfully witness to a watching world.