The Epidemic of Christian Busyness

The Christian life is often filled with busyness. Activity after activity fills the calendars of churches and the agendas of our lives. More and more we gravitate toward doing, serving and doing some more.

Even our times of prayer can veer off into busyness and distraction. Blinded by our many needs and requests, we may launch into rattling off our petitions to the Lord. Instead, we may need to instead quiet our minds, remembering that God already knows our every need.

Whether referring to our personal lives or church activities, none are necessarily bad in and of themselves. However, they have potential to hinder us from the life of Christ God desires for us. We may end up attempting to pursue success in God’s kingdom but missing the true meaning of success altogether.

Helped or Hindered?

One way to search out whether our busyness and activities are helping or hindering is to ask:

• Am I connecting to God as I embark on these things or am disconnected from Him, lost in a sea of activity?
• Am I doing, serving, etc. for my own gain, affirmation or satisfaction, or even simply because I myself want to? Or rather, am I doing this out of obedience to God and for His glory above all?

Busyness can keep us from slowing down enough to truly find out what God’s will is. We won’t have the moments in prayer that we should. We won’t take time in His Word to discover His will for us. We must have this time with God though, studying His Word and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us.

When we become too busy, it may seem like a feast of activity fills our days with life. Yet in this midst of it all, we bypass the rich feast God Himself longs to set before us. We must remember that as we instead give our attention and energy to Christ first, what we give to others will be far more beneficial.

“Loving and honoring God must be first place in our lives, even when it concerns church activity and related things.”

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The Importance of Abiding in Christ

Everything in our lives as Christians should flow from abiding in Jesus. We want to live as ones who are obedient to Him. He is not only our Savior, but our Lord. So we want to seek His will rather than making assumptions and jumping into doing our own thing. We want to find that in the depths of our hearts, we are serving God and others for His glory and not for our own tainted motives.

Read this next: Searching Out the Motives of Our Hearts

Our first aim is to build friendship with Jesus above all—taking time to pray, seek His will and know His Word. Without Him, we cannot bear good fruit or live godly lives to the fullest extent. In John 15:4-5, Jesus says:

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

John 15:4-5 (NASB)

Beyond the Christian To Do List

Giving our lives to God isn’t about checking things off our “good Christian” to do list. We are not workers or slaves but children of God, the Bride of Christ. We are His sons and daughters, serving beside Him and under His leadership.

We are called to live as a people surrendered to God’s leadership. We need to slow down and let Him teach us in His ways of life and love. Take a step back and don’t let busyness and its flurry of activity rule you.

Sit with the Lord in prayer. Take His Word and study it deeply. Seek out what He wants to teach you. Then from that place of surrender to Him, walk out the activities—those specific tasks that He wants and in the quantity that He leads.