I have a pretty good imagination, but maybe it’s because that’s how my life feels lately. I was thinking today of the phrase, “I’m so busy I’m meeting myself coming and going.” Today’s to-do list is going to take me until Thursday next month to get it all done. There’s negotiating the contract for the feasts and making feast plans; homeschooling - teaching three different grades simultaneously; participating in 4H meetings and field trips, teaching projects and attending others; planning a graduation ceremony (invitations, programming, photos, music); doing taxes; reviewing house and car insurance; putting out a church newsletter; making plans for a garden (read: getting a seed order ready); looking for a good deal on a car for youngster going off to college this fall; scholarship applications and essays; preparing a seminar (and gifts) for the women’s retreat; bookkeeping for personal and church accounts; and then there’s the normal: laundry, meals, dishes, cleaning house, paying bills, collecting firewood. I think you could say I’m meeting myself coming and going these days.
What happens when you’re so busy you don’t know whether you’re coming or going? I’ve noticed several things: 1) You make more mistakes because you’re distracted by all of the mental activity. And I don’t care what anyone says; no one multi-tasks well for long periods of time. 2) You take short cuts. There’s not enough time to do everything well, so you start doing what you have to do just to be good enough. 3) You sacrifice taking care of yourself like you should. You don’t take the time to make nutritious meals, grabbing whatever is handy. You don’t watch your fluid intake, or worse, you drink too much caffeine to keep you going. You don’t get enough sleep. And tests show that you are as impaired when sleep-deprived as when intoxicated from alcohol. You don’t feel well. You’re not at the top of your game. Long term, you’re ruining your health. 4) You let slide the tasks which aren’t screaming at you for completion. And yes, you’re right. Prayer time and Bible study are among those tasks which seem less urgent. Once you’re on that path of short-changing your relationship with God, everything starts to spiral out of control.
There has to be a happy medium, a healthy balance. We can’t completely check out from being a responsible adult, actively serving God. What a huge insult to God to tell people we are bored! There are too many things to do, valuable things to do, interesting thing to do, profitable things to do - to ever say that you’re bored. And yet, the other end of the spectrum is not God-honoring either! You can’t be so busy that you can’t do any of your tasks well, and worse, you have so many things to do that you neglect the relationship with God. I can’t help thinking about Jesus withdrawing to a quiet place to pray. There were always demands on His time, people wanting His attention. But you never read that Jesus hurried. Rather, He kept His eyes on His goal. His mission was from the Father and He stayed in close communication so that He never got side-tracked from what was important and necessary and Godly.
Do you remember watching those cartoons where someone gets into a fight and pretty soon all you can see is the dust wheel with arms and legs and fists flying in the ball of mess? Do you remember that sometimes one of the participants would simply step out of the dust mess and would lean nonchalantly against the wall while the other continued to punch and kick and wear himself out doing nothing? I couldn’t help thinking of that as I was envisioning the dust mess in my whack-a-mole game. What if, in becoming so intent on whacking that you don’t know whether you’re coming or going - or even if there are moles being whacked.
I’m whacking a lot of moles these days. But there’s still time in every day for prayer and Bible study. And yet, my desire is for more things of God and less of the time-wasters and unimportant. Discerning the value of tasks, balancing everything, whacking only the moles which really need it ☺︎, that’s the goal. How’s your mole whacking going?