Arrested Development

Day 9 reading assignment:
Gen 20:1-22:24
Matt 7:15-29
Psalm 9:1-12
Proverbs 2:16-22

The peaches are rotting.  Dirty towels are pro-creating in my laundry room.  The itchy bald spot on my dog's back isn't going away.  She's had a skin condition for 3 weeks and everynight I make an imaginary note to self to call the vet.  The maintenance on the furnace is past due and so is my mammogram and my colonoscopy.  My hormones are out of whack.  I need a dentist appointment and there's a piano for sale in my carport.  Well it would be for sale if I had posted the Craigslist add two months ago.  Acorns are dropping at mach speed in my yard  while weeds are sprouting everywhere.  There is mold on the shower curtain and cobwebs on my ceiling.  That last bit sounds like a  title for a country song but in reality it is my life.  I'm spiraling down in the chaos of busyness.  The squirrels are back and I have a strong desire to veer off the path. While I'm staying on track with the daily reading assignment, it's showing up at the blog page that has hit a set-back.  In my defense I've had some technical difficulties recently but that is not the problem.  My problem is and has been for many years, busyness.  I decided to do a little research on the subject of busyness and I am wishing I would have just commented on Genesis 20 and left well enough alone.

The first words I found defining busyness were: egotistical, arrogant, morally lazy, irresponsible stewardship of time.  I was stung by these words and then I read: ' Busyness is the enemy of spirituality.  It is essentially laziness.  It is doing the easy thing instead of the difficult.  It is filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God's actions.  It is taking charge.'

Another article I found said: Someone once said that a bore is someone who, when you ask her how she is, tells you.  A bigger bore is someone who, when you remark that you notice she is busy, details how busy and with what activities.  I am stricken with these truths.  These are the very things I do and say.  I feel like I need to send "Please forgive me" notices to everyone near and dear to me.  I thought my circumstances justified my busyness.  But the sad truth is busyness has taken a toll on relationships that I treasure.  It has nearly destroyed the state of my home.  It is rendering me useless to God and the people who depend on me.  It is the "Big Gun" in the enemy's arsenal and I have wielded it like a bank robber.

Once again it is being brought to my attention that I can do nothing when I don't make God my priority.  When I try to put Him off until I get everything else done, nothing gets done.  I hurry through every single day only to wake the next morning facing the same unfinished chore list and compounding my inferior feelings.  (More self-centering)  I must make satan so proud.

I am unpleasantly surprised at this discovery, and I am humbled.  I was sure when I committed to this project that it would grow me spiritually and the thought of that was exciting.  What I had in mind was more gain less pain.  The truth really does hurt my heart.  I have wasted a lot of life being busy.  But not anymore.  In the true spirit of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind (and I'm paraphrasing) "As God as my witness, the enemy won't lick me, I'll never be ...BUSY again!"  




I can be active and pray, work and pray, but I cannot be busy and pray
                                                                                       -unknown-