Our Need to be Busy

Our Need to be Busy. It's a silly title, I know. Who actually needs to be busy? A lot of us do....

In college I lead worship for a ministry called Open DooR. Yes, the R is capitalized on purpose. Our band was lucky enough to be given many opportunities to lead worship outside the ministry. A good friend of mine came to me once and said that a certain group was considering asking the band to lead worship for a retreat and she told them not to ask me. When I asked her why she simply said, "Because I knew you'd say yes."

Back in those days I needed someone to protect me from my "need to be busy." For some reason, in many of us, there is a certain fear that if we turn down opportunities that come our way we will somehow be less important. We've all bought into a lie that says we should feel guilty if our schedules aren't filled to the max. I used to even feel guilty for taking time to read my Bible and pray, as if there was something else more important that I should be "accomplishing." It's sick, I know.

Thankfully, somewhere along the way I learned to ignore my need to be busy and recognize my need to rest. I rarely need someone to tell me when to take a day off because I usually know when I need it and I'm not afraid to take it.

Lately I've discovered a different challenge to the "need to be busy" problem. Sometimes it's hard being a Christian and working in a church. My busyness is usually good busyness so it can be difficult to notice when it's more about my need to feel important than it is about doing what God wants me to do.

So now I'm trying to practice being a follower of Christ simply because I love Jesus, not because I'm paid to serve. If I'm busy serving, I want it to be about loving Jesus, not about growing my church and not about appearing to be a better, more important Christian than I really am.

In his book, "The Life You've Always Wanted," John Ortberg tells a great story about Pope John XXIII, who apparently had an advisor that was constantly telling him the problems of the church and the world, etc... The pope had finally had enough so he took the guy aside and confessed that he, too, was sometimes tempted to live as though the fate of the world rested on him. He was helped, he said, by an angel who would sometimes show up and say, "Hey, there, Johnny boy, don't take yourself so seriously."