Daily Encouragement: Day 334

Adapted from Handbook to Spiritual Growth

THE PROBLEM OF BUSYNESS

The civil religion of America worships the god of progress and inspires us to compete, achieve, and win for the sake of competing, achieving, and winning. Life for many people in the business world has been colorfully described as a matter of “blowing & going, plotting & planning, ducking & diving, running & gunning, slamming & jamming, moving & shaking, jucking & jiving.”

Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote, “We are warned not to waste time, but we are brought up to waste our lives.” This is evident in the tragedy of many people who in the first half of their lives spend their health looking for wealth, and in the last half spend their wealth looking for health.

Here are just a few questions to ask yourself to determine if busyness is a problem for you:

  • Are you pursuing excellence to the glory of God, or success to receive honor from people?
  • Do you have a balanced rhythm between work and rest, or do you often allow work to invade times of rest?
  • Do you budget your time so that what’s urgent flows around what’s most important, or does the urgent often overwhelm the important?

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