The past 24 hours in my home has been a lesson in busy-ness. It began last night when a computer virus forced me to work quickly to save important files before I lost them. I had planned on being done with the computer by 6pm, eat dinner with the family, talk about the day thus far and assist my wife in preparing the house for guests who were to arrive by 7:30pm. Well by the time I could leave the computer without fear of further infection it was nearly 7pm and all I had done was cram a bowl of chili down my throat while my wife took care of the kids and started the cleanup.
Needless to say the last 30 minutes before FOCUS Group were filled with short tempers, annoyed tones, a broken drawer with papers all over the floor, a crying toddler and 2 completely unfocused adults. The rush from 6-7:30pm made loving each other rather unappealing. Instead we were ready to make war. But at least I got the dishes done in record time!
As I was leaving the house earlier today I was again in a rush. A couple of weeks ago I had been told by my supervisor at my part-time bus driving job that 2pm sharp was my arrival time, not 2:05pm. I now know exactly when I need to leave the house to arrive by 2pm and that time was quickly approaching. I gave the kids and my wife a kiss goodbye and ran out the door. Lately, however, a kiss is not enough for my 7 year old daughter. As I ran out the door I got half-way to the truck and realized I forgot some papers and ran back inside. My daughter was now insistent on a hug before I left again so I quickly squeezed her head in my hip and tried to run out. But in my house a kiss always follows a hug and if a kiss does not follow a hug a wining child follows a hug. So in order to pursuade my daughter to let go of me I quickly bent down and gave her a kiss.
Then, just as I got to the truck door to hop in, my daughter and 5 year old boy began yelling from the steps of the house, "We want a hug. We want a hug!"
"I just gave you a hug!", I replied and motioned to them to run out to me quickly. We embraced, I left and all is still well for my bus job.
The point I am trying to make with these two stories is that busy-ness makes loving people well about 300lbs heavier. In fact loving people well while running at warp speed is such a difficult balance to keep that most people, if not all people, collapse under the pressure. What's worse, when we are so busy for so long time continues to fly by and before we know it our children don't have time for us either. We feel estranged from them. They feel estranged from us. Trying to build our home life around Jesus after many years of unhealthy busy-ness becomes an attempt to "re-build" life around Jesus because so much of what we orginally built has fallen down.
Perhaps the greatest testimony to busy-ness as an enemy of love is Harry Chapin's 1974 hit song" Cats and the Cradle". No song that I know preaches busy-ness as an enemy of love like this one. Watch...
Folks I am learning, and so are you I'm sure, that if we want to build our life around Jesus we must reject as practically as possible the temptation to busy-ness. Busy-ness is an enemy of love.
In a future post I may, for those who are interested, list some practical things we can do in the 21st century to slow down while still remaining faithful to our work responsibilities.
You know Shaun, I relate so much to the situation you wrote about. I find often that I miss my kids a heck of a lot and when I'm finally home with them I'm throwing a coloring book and crayons on the table so I can keep them busy while I get some more work done! I don't spend the time I should when I'm with them and end up missing them all the time.
ReplyDeleteI also feel this way about my journey in keeping my faith at the forefront of my everyday life. I say to myself, "tomorrow I am going to make sure I read this many chapters/pages from the bible." Tomorrow comes and instead of doing what I said I would do I remembered I have to do the laundry, clean up the house, grade some papers or finish lesson plans and by the time the day ends, it's past midnight and I'm falling asleep before I have to wake up by 5am.
The next day, I tell my self I will read what I was going to read on the weekend because then, I will definitely have some time to do it...but the weekend comes and then I have to study for my exams coming up and sure enough, the "busy-ness" consumes me. Before I know it I've read a verse, and it's midnight again before I have to start yet another day without accomplishing what I really wanted to. I realize that as each day passes, I put on the backburner what I "really" want to do. I think I should create a better daily plan so that this changes.
Wanda
Wanda,
ReplyDeleteI understand the dillemma between what you should do, want to do and have to do. I suppose there must be some happy medium where what we should do is also what we want to do and have to do. I wonder if the happy medium is more a choice of worldview than anything else though?
What if we decided in our minds that what we "have to do" is connect with God in a meaningful way every day. What if that were a non-negotiable? Maybe if we held to that standard then we would find ourselves accomplishing both what we should do and want to do as well.
I think a better daily plan could definitely help you. What might be additionally helpful is to eliminate some activities from your life. There are many activities which take up time, contribute some good to our family and ourselves, are a popular activity for many families in our community, but in the end they do not really do much to nuture our souls.
Take athletics for example. I played sports all the way through High School. I was even the captain of both my varsity baseball and football teams. Team sports were for me an excellent self-confidence builder and could have been an excellent vehicle for teaching me about one's responsibility to a larger group of people (i.e. our church, our family, our community). I say "could have been" because my coaches never looked past the glory of winning to actually teach me about those important life-lessons. I am grateful today for my athletic experiences and will be sure to give those experiences to my children as well.
However, I don't think I needed 3 seasons of athletics every year. What if I played only one sport? That would take up only one season and I would have probably been much more skilled at that one sport than I was at the two or three or four that many children do today.
Eliminating activities in our schedules is sometimes the only way to free ourselves up enought to intentionally "build life around Jesus" individually and as a family.
I don't know where you are at. Maybe a rearranging of your schedule is all that is needed at this point. Maybe elimination. Maybe just a worldview change.
Thanks for your honest thoughts Wanda!
Shaun