The Real Reason You Feel So Busy
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I don't know if it is just me, but I feel like I hear the word busy all the time. You, you ask someone, "How you doing?" Yeah, I'm good. I'm, oh, I'm so busy." Or, "Yeah, I'm busy doing this," or, "Yeah, life's been so busy, we haven't been able to catch up." I feel like that's like a normal response to, "How you doing?"
Or or what's been going on?" And I started to think is it being busy becoming a status symbol? But hear me out. The why I think like that is if I was chatting to, say, Tom, and he asked me how I'm doing and I said, "Oh, actually, I've got loads of time. I've actually got nothing going on right now.
I'm doing nothing, and I've just got all of this spare time." You guys are laughing 'cause if someone said that, you'd be like, "Okay do something then. Go and do something. Don't just sit there and do nothing. What are you thinking? Go and be busy. You should be doing something." It's nice to know you guys thought the same as I did as well.
I would be thinking, "What are you doing? You've got so much spare time." So that's why I feel like it's like a we have to feel like we're busy. "Oh, yeah, I'm busy too." "Yeah, you're busy? I'm busy. Yeah, we're all busy. Good." So there's a status symbol in our lives. But then I started to think a little bit more, and we're all busy, but shouldn't we have more time than we've have ever had before with all this modern advancements?
Like, when was the last time you lined up at the bank to go and withdraw your pay or to bank a check? Apart from business owners that might have that, I don't know. Some banks don't even have a branch, you gotta go to the post office. Like, when was the last time you lined up and did all that? Or previously, you'd wanna meet a friend, and if they didn't rock up, you had to go find a payphone, or you had to go and wait for them, but now you just get messages every time.
"Oh, I'm running late. Sorry, I'm running late. Sorry, I'm running late." As if they didn't know there was traffic. Or our GPS, going through the Refedex before you went on your trip for somewhere you've never been, highlighting... Is it a Refedex? Yeah? Yeah. I feel like there was another name for it.
Street directory. Street directory. But I remember you'd print out a few of the pages that were in your local area, and you'd keep that in the car if you couldn't afford a Refedex. You'd have to prep that before you'd go. Even I've, I sent some photos to my nana in New Zealand to upload to her little video frame.
That's when you know you're getting on in life, when you get a video frame. Tell me anyone under the age of, say, 50 that has a digital frame. I can say that 'cause my parents just got one. They're also not under 50, so point proven all I needed to do is log onto this app and get a unique code, and I can just zap all these photos to my grandparents' little video photo thing.
Previously, I'd have to go and get the photos developed. I'd have to go and print them out. Then I'd have to go and line up at the post office and figure out how many stamps I needed to pay to send it overseas, and then she would have to receive and go to the post office and line up. Like, all of these things took time that we don't do anymore.
So really, we should have hours and hours of saved time because we don't have to do these things that we used to do. But it doesn't seem like that, does it? It doesn't seem like that we have all this time. We've almost saved the time and gone, "Ooh, I've got all this time. I'm gonna fill it with more stuff.
I can't wait to fill my life with more stuff. I've freed up all this stuff, and I'm just gonna immediately fill my life to be more and more busy." Another way to look at is, who parks their car in the garage? Yeah. That's under 50. Again, very few. There's five or six hands that went up. You drive past a street, and for some reason, someone's got their garage door up, or maybe it's someone you know, or maybe it's you.
And they're just packed to the brim. There's boxes, and no one can even get in there, let alone a car. You've driven past and you're going, "Oh, that's embarrassing." "These are hoarders." But we found the car didn't really need to live in the garage anymore. If we didn't need it, now I can fill it with all my crap.
Now I've got more space to put my junk. But that's like our lives. We've got all this time, and now we've filled it. Our garage, we've filled it.
But are we actually busy? Or is it busy and the word busy has just become such a part of our language, and articulating to people that we're busy is just part of our everyday life? If all we hear is people say, "Oh, yeah, I'm busy. You're busy. We're busy. Everybody's busy," does it make it actually seem that we're busier than we really are?
Oh,
yeah. Are we... By saying we're busy, are we just creating this false sense of time pressure with no room to move? We feel "I am busy. I don't have any capacity to do anything else. I'm so busy right now." And I will preface, there are times that we w- are, will be flat out. There...
I'm not trying to say that no one's ever busy. But when we really think about it, are we strapped for time? Are we got so much t- stuff going on that we have no room- To move. I don't have time for that. I can't do that 'cause I've prioritized all of this. I can't fit any of that stuff in. Let all that go to the wayside 'cause I don't have time.
I'm too busy to do any of that. Because if busy is the default state that we've agreed to live in, and we've convinced ourselves that there's no more room left, then God gets treated like everything else that doesn't fit in our garage. He's not rejected, just displaced gradually. It's "Oh, yeah, I've gotta do that.
Okay I'll do my devotions maybe at lunchtime now instead of the morning, 'cause, I've gotta do this. Okay, now maybe I'll do it every second day. I'll spend some time with God. And oh, m- I'm too busy, I'm gonna..." And it just, he just slowly fades out. We start to put more and more things in front.
We prioritize more and more things. We do the opposite, because we need to create space, and make room, and have margin in our life to spend with Him, and that's the importance of our SOAP devotions, is creating that time, whether it be 10 minutes if you're a speed reader, or an hour, but it's creating that space, moving the other stuff out of the garage so that you can create time and space to be with God.
And it might require just a change of your language. I've been trying to be really mindful over the last couple of years when people ask me how I'm doing, respond with that, but never say, "Oh, I've been busy. Yeah, I've just been, I've been busy." I'm just trying to take that out of my language, unless something has been crazy busy and it's been a chaotic day, but just not making it a default response of, "Yeah, I've just been busy."
Because it gives them the idea that I can't... They're too busy for me as well. They're too busy. They don't have time for me. I wanted to catch up with them, but they're busy. They're not creating any margin for me. And then when I started to think "Am I actually busy?" I heard a really good statement once, and it said, "Are you busy, or are you messy busy?"
Are you busy and you've actually got things to do, or are you chaotically messy busy like me, that you don't re- you, you're not really full of time. You're not really super busy, but you're just busy doing stuff. Could just be an ADHD thing, but just messy busy. I thought it was a great example of not being actually busy, just messy busy.
And it requires me to take stock of my life and my days and go, "Do I actually have time for God today? Do I... Am I actually that flat out that I can't prioritize half an hour a day to spend with my Savior, the one that gave it all for me?" And I think it, it's caused me to ask myself, "Where does God land in my day-to-day?"
Where does he land in my week by week? And here's the thing about your garage, is it doesn't fill itself. Someone's not breaking into your house and putting all their crap in there. It's all of your stuff. Sorry, I probably said that word a few too many times. We might get cut off now. But someone's not coming and putting their stuff, it's your stuff.
You chose to keep those Christmas decorations from 40 years ago that you've never put up. Those Christmas lights "Yeah, I'm gonna be the fanciest house on the street with all these Christmas lights." But then you realize there's hours and hours of work, but you don't want to get rid of them 'cause you might, just in case I'm feeling really Christmassy and I want to put them up.
In case I've got all this time and I want to spend two hours putting my Christmas lights up. You put them in there, okay? We get to choose what goes in our day-to-day. And I wanted to make a case this morning of why it's important to create time and to create space to spend at Jesus's feet. A few weeks ago, we were reading in Samuel and we were writing, reading about David, and it was the scripture where we're talking about the battle between the Philistines and the Israelites and Goliath.
A, a typical biblical story in the Old Covenant where they're at loggerheads, and Goliath is this big monster, which is... I think they said he's about nine feet tall and big and scary, and he got them at loggerheads. Everyone's a bit afraid to come and fight him, and David's just coming down to see his brothers, giving him lunch, and he was wondering why nothing was happening, and he wanted to do it.
He wanted to get involved. So he went back to King Saul at the time, and King Saul was like, "Okay, if you want to do this is what we're gonna do, and this is where it comes to." So it's 1 Samuel 17:39. It says, "Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put on a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head.
David fastened his sword over the tunic and tried walking around because he was not used to them. 'I cannot go in these,' he said to Saul, 'because I am not used to them.' So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand. He chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in a pouch of his shepherd's bag, and with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine."
David realized that he had not trained with that armor and that sword and all of that extra stuff. He realized that he wasn't going to be his optimal self in that battle. It didn't feel natural. He said he tried to start walking, so he was trying to make it feel normal, but it just didn't. It wasn't his preferred way to fight and to battle.
He had trained in something else. And it m- got me thinking, not in relation to a physical battle, clearly 'cause, me. But we don't do physical battles anymore. It's not about my size, but... But I was thinking about my spiritual battles and my day-to-day battles, my challenges that I face.
What have I trained myself with that will feel natural and empowering when I need it most?
What are you facing your challenges and your battles with? If you're facing some health challenges, what are you reaching for in those moments? If you're f- you're facing financial challenges or mental health challenges, what are you leaning on in those moments? What have you trained with before this moment?
Is my go-to the Word of God and to stand on His promise and His goodness for me? Is my go-to constant and relentless prayer? Is my go-to reciting the scriptures that I've spent years reading or the ones that I've written down and journaled on? Am I turning to quiet time and meditation to just refocus and re-surrender everything?
Is what I do in preparation enough for what is coming in the battle? Because if I don't do those things that I just spoke about in training and in preparation, why would I reach for them in battle? It's not a natural thing for me to do. Like David, it, it wasn't natural to get the armor. Yes, it was more protective and the sword was sharper, but he didn't reach for that 'cause he hadn't trained with that.
What are we training with that we can reach for? If I don't make time for those things, if I don't make time to spend in my devotions, why would I reach for them in those times when I need them? So I ask you, what does your training look like? What does your day-to-day training look like? Are you spending daily time with God, reading His Word, letting it soak deep into your foundations, into your being, and letting it change you as you spend time with Him?
Or are you like me sometimes, doing the bare minimum, praying sometimes, maybe consuming podcasts to, to just get the content in there, and it feels good and the knowledge is good, but it's not bringing any life change or accountability? And looking elsewhere for inspiration and content and encouragement is helpful, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.
And we can get stuck in that cycle of watching other people train and not training ourselves. Even listening to a message on a Sunday morning, that's not a personal revelation. It's from somebody else. This is just the start. This is just the surface. We always encourage you to go back to your devotion, go back to spending time with God, 'cause that's the thing that will be steadfast when you face those battles.
It wasn't like, "Oh, what did Taylor say six months ago? It was really good, but I really need it right now." You don't remember. I guarantee fifty percent won't remember what I say after we leave the doors out here. That's not bringing that life change and those tools when you face those battles.
The things you do in training are the things that you'll reach for in battle. If I don't seek the Lord in training, if I don't spend my time in prayer, if I don't spend time meditating on his Word, and I don't worship him, how can I reach for those in the times of challenges? So David had his sling.
What's yours? For me, and I think a lot of us in the room, it's our SOAP devotions. That's our sling. That's the major vehicle for our battles. And some of you have been de- doing devotions for a while, and that as your main weapon. But the sling in itself isn't the thing that defeated Goliath.
There were stones in there. Spending time and making time to spend in our devotions, it prepares us. It teaches us. Doing the devotions isn't the thing that brings the life change. It's what the, what comes out of your devotions is what brings the life change. It teaches us to rely on him for guidance. It creates a habit of surrender and understanding how to surrender ourselves, our time, our needs, and our wants to sacrifice our busy days to sit at Jesus' feet.
It's what sharpens us and molds us and pushes us to be more like Jesus every day. Our SOAP devotions is just the door. It's because it's not the method that transforms us, it's our God we meet on the other side. Sitting at Jesus' feet every single day is what trains us. Creating space for Jesus every single day is what trains us This is the training we need to do in preparation, but where does it sit in your day?
And that's what I want to leave you with this morning, is that challenge of where does Jesus sit in your day? Where does He sit in your garage? So we're going to walk through a devotion this morning to give you a chance for some of us to just do it, some of us to learn a little bit about our SOAP devotions and what it may look like.
If I can invite Anita and Phil up for this morning, and Lane and Geraldine as well.
With the SOAP reading plan it's a method, right? The- we've got the SOAP acronym which is the way we can read the Bible and start to actually apply it to our lives, because how often do we just read and go, "Yeah, that was good." Cool, fold it up, put it away. The SOAP acronym allows us to, to read that scripture and then to spend some time observing what is that actually doing.
So it forces us to stop, slow down, and create some space. What is... What am I seeing? And then the application. How can I be different from what I have just read? Because there's absolutely no point just to walk away at the observation, 'cause there's been no life change. The whole purpose of doing our devotions is for life change.
It's not just to feel good or to gain knowledge, it's to be different than what you did before you read it. So we apply the SOAP method with a reading plan, and the reading plan just takes us through the Bible, takes us through the old covenant and the new covenant under Jesus, and it just allows a smooth transition between the two, and it's just a guide.
Again, it's not a rigid program. It's just a guide to to lay those foundations, lay those training moments for you.
It's about the meditating on God's Word. That's what it does. And if you're like me, maybe you might spend fifteen or twenty minutes, 'cause I'm a quick reader, a very quick writer. Two sentences, you can write that pretty quick. It's not about the length, it's about sitting down at Jesus' feet and training and meditating on His Word.
This week you're gonna take stock of your days and your weeks. Are you actually busy? Is there time that you can spare thirty, forty, an hour, twenty minutes? Making time, making space for Jesus. 'Cause you can't create more time. I've tried, doesn't work. We've all got 24 hours, but we can create space and margin in our life, and I believe if we stop using that word busy, it starts to change our mindset.
It starts to free us up and go, "Actually, I do have 20 minutes every single day to do this. I'm not as busy as I feel like I am."