Chronic Busyness: No Time to Think

Written by Jana Young

This article is courtesy of HomeLife magazine.

I really hate getting out of bed in the morning. But soon after my fortieth birthday I began getting up 45 minutes earlier to exercise. One morning, hot and sweaty after finishing my workout, I looked up at the clock on my way to the shower and realized that somehow I had set my alarm wrong and had risen an hour earlier than usual. I resisted the urge to crawl back into bed. Instead, I spent my gift of extra time in a comfortable chair in a quiet house, praying and reading Scripture. That morning I experienced genuine communication with God.

Renovation of the Heart

After that wonderful experience, did I continue getting up at 5:00 a.m. instead of 6:00? No way. I fell rather quickly from the spiritual mountaintop to the real world of chaotic rushing in the morning to get my two sons to school and myself to work on time. So much for watching the sunrise as I read my favorite psalms.

Reasons for Busyness

Why do we get caught up in the rush of life when we know stillness is so rewarding? One obvious answer seems to be that we are victims of the culture of success that pervades American society. Dr. Cynthia Harr, a counselor with Lifebuilders Center of Biblical Discipleship and Counseling in Sunnyvale, Texas, has devoted much of her career to counseling overstressed people. She and her husband recently returned to the United States after spending several years as missionaries in Brazil. She says it’s been a challenge for their family to adjust to the faster pace of American culture. “What kind of car we drive seems so important in the States,” she says.

We buy the largest houses we can afford and then work long hours to make the mortgage payments. We enroll our children in gymnastics, sports, and music lessons because we want them to be the brightest and the best. We work long and hard, come home to chauffeur our kids around to multitudes of activities, and then fall asleep at night without even trying to carve out some quiet time with the God of all creation.

But there are other reasons to consider for our constant frenzy of activity. In a world where airplanes crash into buildings and teenagers open fire in schools, we are afraid for our children. We want to construct a safe, productive life for them in a world that seems dangerous and uncertain. So we run, searching for meaning and safety, determined that our children will rise above the culture that surrounds us.

Also, busyness makes us feel important. Ask how our jobs are going, and frequently we’ll talk about how busy we are. This seems to offer a sense of job security. If we’re busy, we must be needed. Likewise, in a broader sense, busy family and church lives assure us we are needed. People depend on us. We are working hard for God.

Most important, sometimes we stay busy because we don’t really want to have time to think. When families are involved in a constant whirlwind of activity, they don’t have to communicate. Problems can be pushed below the surface because there is no time to deal with them. With distorted logic, we think if we don’t talk about these problems, they must not exist. We may have beautiful homes and talented children, but we construct a false sense of security concerning the health of our families.

Results of Busyness

What are the results of chronic busyness? Dr. Harr says the frenetic pace of activity we maintain in our families can lead to adverse stress reactions such as domestic violence and uncontrolled anger. “For example,” she says, “a dad commutes an hour to and from work each day. He has a stressful day at work. Then he comes home and sees that his teenage son has neglected to empty the trash again. He blows up and takes out the built-up frustration from his busy day on his son.”

Constant busyness also inhibits our children’s abilities to entertain themselves. They forget how to simply be still, and they claim to be bored if they’re not moving from one activity to the next. Many times children want to spend time with their parents instead of going somewhere. I believe teenagers even want to spend more time with their parents than we think they do. They find their security in a stable, rather predictable family life instead of a constant rush of activities.

Husbands and wives can become strangers to each other if they let their busy lives prevent them from spending time with each other. I have a friend who used to work 80 hours a week in a sales position. He says he came home from work one night and realized he didn’t even know his wife anymore. He quit his sales job and began to re-evaluate his lifestyle.

Making a marriage last a lifetime requires intimate communication, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. Through intimacy, husbands and wives become “one flesh” as God designed. Without intimacy, they are merely two people living in the same house.

Not only does compulsive activity cause us to become strangers to our husbands and wives, but God Himself becomes a stranger to us. Tragically, when we lose sight of who God is, we begin subconsciously reshaping Him in our image, making Him into something that can fit into our lifestyle.

We play mental games with ourselves, believing things like, “It’s OK that I can’t tithe because I wouldn’t be able to make my house payment if I did.” Or “God understands why I don’t pray or read my Bible as much as I used to. I have to get to the PTA meeting.” “God knows why I’m irritable with my children. I had a tough day at work.”

Just as a good marriage requires intimacy, a growing relationship with God requires intimacy as well. Intimacy with our Heavenly Father will not grow if we don’t take the time to communicate with Him. Without an intimate relationship with God, Christians aren’t distinguishable from secular culture. We are defined simply by church attendance instead of who we are as people of God.

Our attempts to be successful, raise gifted children, and maintain a sense of security and value are futile if they are rooted in physical realms instead of spiritual ones. Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ... Seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:25, 33).

Is your family too busy?

Dr. Harr says your family might be too busy if parents or children are experiencing increased irritability and fatigue. Parents, do you truly know your children? What are their friends’ names? What are their favorite subjects in school? What special challenges are they dealing with right now? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you may not be spending enough time with your children.

Another indication that your family may be too busy is if everyone’s priorities are based outside the home. If work, school, or outside activities are more important to family members than their relationships to God and the health of the family, priorities are misplaced.

Eliminate Misplaced Busyness

How can we eliminate misplaced busyness and put God’s work first? Some simple steps will help.

First, turn off the TV. Several years ago I directed an after-school program at my church. A second-year medical student was one of my most faithful volunteers. One day I asked him how he found the time to work with us on a regular basis. “I don’t watch TV,” was his simple reply. We may not realize how much time we waste sitting in front of a television set. Keep a journal of your family’s viewing habits for one week. You may be shocked at the hours your family could reclaim if the TV was turned off.

Second, re-examine the activities in which your children are involved. Being on a sports team is great. Gymnastics classes are wonderful. Learning to play a musical instrument is valuable. But does your child need to be doing all three simultaneously? The key is balance. If you build more free time into your children’s lives, they can learn to initiate fun and learning according to their interests. Then all of you can make better choices about activities in which to be involved.

Third, commit as a family to stay home together at least two nights a week. Eat supper at the table, talk, or play board games. Let the answering machine catch the phone calls. Allow the family the time to know one another.

Finally, we must realize that God most often speaks to us in what the Bible describes as a gentle whisper. The tired and frustrated prophet Elijah complained to God that his enemies were trying to kill him. “The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:11-12). Most of the time, the voice of God is a whisper, not a roar.

In his book Hearing God (Intervarsity Press, 1999), Dallas Willard writes, “The still small voice — or the interior or inner voice, as it is also called — is the preferred and most valuable form of individualized communication for God’s purposes. God usually addresses individually those who walk with him in a mature, personal relationship using this inner voice, proclaiming and showing forth the reality of the kingdom of God as they go.”

In our busyness we want God to get our attention in a dramatic way. But instead of looking for a fire or an earthquake, we should be still and listen for the whisper of God. As we hear the whispers of God, we get to know Him better. The better we know God, the more transformed our lives become. We are shaped into His image instead of vainly attempting to shape Him into ours. We discover value in being children of God instead of judging ourselves by the culture in which we live.

Jana Young is director of the church and community ministries division of the Dallas Baptist Association.