Too Busy for God

Was just reflecting on the Sunday Sermon that Rev Darryl gave ..... We have to change our attitudes and the quote from CS Lewis was indeed meaningful and needs to be implemented!!

CS Lewis

“It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind."

Managed to do some further reading and found the following to be a useful reminder ....

We live in a world full of distractions. It’s not just the television, phone, or the internet. We live in a world full of distractions. 

The average person is working more than before as well. It’s encouraged to work overtime and to work more than the typical work-week. It’s not seen as a bad thing, but it’s viewed as simply working hard and making more money by putting in that extra time. However, unlike before, most husbands and wives are working and putting in that extra time while their kids are busy with school and activities. This is the busy world most of us live in.

In the midst of this busy world and in this context is where pastors call others to spend time with God reading the Bible and in prayer. 

We feel like we have no time to simply be in the present because we are always focused on what’s next. The result is that time with God takes a backseat to time with family, time with food, time with work, time with phone, time with tv, time with vacation, and time with everything else.

It’s become not only accepted to be busy, but expected. So, if you aren’t very, very busy, then something is wrong. The truth is that as Christians, we need to reclaim our rest in Jesus Christ and lose the busyness that our culture holds so dear.

If spending time with God is important to us, we will make time. It’s not that you are busy, it’s that you need to get your priorities straight.

We need to enjoy new technology like cell phones with all their capabilities, good tv programming, and even the activities that fill our lives. However, we need to be careful that these things, as helpful as they can be, do not become the foundation of our lives nor the goal of our lives.

Too often we complain about how we just don’t seem to have time to spend with God as we “used to.” However, if we’re honest, there are things in our schedule that can be sacrificed in order to spend time with God. Even when we’re at work, what is 10-15 minutes spent in the Word doing a devotional for an hour lunch break? 

We all think we’re too busy for God, but the truth is that is just an excuse so that we can feel better about ourselves as we do all the things we want to do except spend time with God and not feel guilty about it.

We think we’re too busy for God because although we are Christian, although we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we still struggle with the world. We still struggle with our old lives, our lives of sin. Although we reside in grace by faith, we are still prone to thinking we serve sin as opposed to God. We are prone to believing the lie that sin reigns in our bodies and lives, when the truth is that although we are sinners the power of sin has been broken in Jesus Christ and not only in his life and work, but in all who believe as His perfect righteousness is applied to us and the same power that brought Him back from the dead resides within all who believe by faith as all who believe have the Holy Spirit within them.

We believe the truths of Scripture, but in our daily lives, we live as if we are alone in our lives of faith when the truth is contrary, we are not alone because the Holy Spirit is with us. God is with us. This is why being “too busy” to spend time with God daily is not a minor issue, it’s a major issue in which we fail to believe the implications of the Gospel for our lives.

In the midst of a busy world, we need to slow down and remember our rest in Jesus Christ. “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Hebrews 3:12-14). 

When the distractions of our busy world cause us to think or say we’re “too busy for God,” we need to seriously pause and reflect on our lives and schedules because we need to be reminded of our divine rest in Jesus Christ and we need to be held accountable to one another for spending time daily in God’s Word and in prayer.