The Bankruptcy of Busy-ness

The “busy” of life has had its grip on me for nearly two decades. Like Wayne Muller, “I have visited the large offices of wealthy donors, the crowded rooms of social service agencies, and the small houses of the poorest families. Remarkably, within this mosaic there is a universal refrain: I am so busy. It does not seem to matter if the people I speak with are doctors or day-care workers, shopkeepers or social workers, parents or teachers, nurses or lawyers, students or therapists, community activists or cooks...As their work all piles endlessly upon itself, the whole experience of being alive begins to melt into one enormous obligation. It becomes the standard greeting everywhere: I am so busy.” Probably you could echo his quoted observations from your own experiences. Certainly this standard greeting has escaped your own lips often.

Perhaps your story looks like mine: in leaving childhood to begin secondary school, duties increased, studies got longer, sleep hours grew shorter, and the idea of actually sitting down to quietly think or read or pray floated ever more distant into the recesses of my mind. Much quicker to retreat from me: the concept of play and joyful abandon. Now, with two young children and a seminary-eclipsed husband, I hurry about the house or campus, cleaning, cooking, working--buzzing with something at all times. Unable to stop or sit down or enter into the happy activities of my daughters (in spite of their sweet invitations and imploring tones), I define rest as something I must achieve. Devotions become another item on my checklist. (True) worship evaporates entirely. I can not stop until I am “done”.

I have been thinking of rest versus toil for weeks. Turning again and again to biblical poetry to satisfy my soul’s thirst for authenticity, I have found refreshing integrity in the authors’ descriptions of their struggle to know God and to understand his world. In Ecclesiastes, for example, Solomon reflects and repeats the rhythms of life, reminding us that everything has its season. If you are like me, you find yourself singing the Byrds’ tune to this “To everything, turn, turn, turn...”(see Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), and what a grace that popular music would be for us a way to remember the rhythm. God’s word teaches us how to dance through the experiences of life, whether joyous or pain-filled, instead of running, frenetic, “like chickens with our heads chopped off”.

Later on in the book, Solomon states: “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.” (Ecclesiastes 4:6). I was stunned by the vision that this verse conjured in my mind. I saw a man clinging to that which he has found in Christ with all of his might. I saw that he had only one hand-hold, one strong hand gripping the precious treasure of peace and rest, and it was enough to transform him. His countenance reflected the calm within, his cheeks flushed, eyes shining and expectant, his other strong arm ready to go about his Father’s business. I saw by contrast the dazed look of a man numbed by his toil and struggle: his eyes glazed-over, framed in fatigue’s black circles. In his pale face, with lined brow and sunken cheeks, lingered a look of resignation and despair. His hands, however, moved rapidly and unceasingly through an indecipherable stack of objects, removing them from one pile and placing them in another...where they were blown away by a fierce and constant wind. He has nothing to show for all his toil: he is, in all ways, bankrupt.
Of these two men, which are we? And if we respond “the latter”, as I assume the majority of us must honestly answer, how will we minister to this poor busy-crazed culture of ours? How will we be agents of redemption to a nation starved of rest, when we do not know how to stop ourselves? How can we invite the world into this amazing dance of ours if we have lost the rhythm and can not recall the steps?

I submit that this rest can be accessed as we experience the means of grace (the ways we engage in relationship with Christ). We must recognize the Father’s example to us--how he rested from his work on the seventh day (we must have Sabbath rest weekly). We must allow the gospel time to come to bear on our hearts and sit there and distill and transform us (we need to be exposed to his Word). We must come into God’s presence to hear from him and speak to him (prayer) and come into the presence of his people (fellowship). We must give him all praise, honor, and glory as we reflect on his beauty (worship); we must recognize the death he died and celebrate the life he lives for us (the Lord’s supper). Another list of things to do? No--rather, the cadence of our life should be measured by these, and not by our duties. It may take time, and tentative steps. It might take sweeping everything else off of the plate of our lives in order to create and start with those important moments. But If we do not, we will be seeking to give to the unbelieving world out of spiritual bankruptcy...and the world already has that.