When I was growing up I spent most of my time with my sisters and our neighborhood friends. In the fall we collected buck-eyes from the trees in the neighborhood and loaded them into paper grocery bags. Fall was the host to the annual buck-eye wars. Our two separate teams took turns sacrificing fellow team members to race down the slide, hoping to avoid welts bye buck-eyes. My mom would clap loudly 5 times at our bedroom window, signaling the end of the war (for me and Rachel at least) and the beginning of an inevitably fantastic dinner. Ah, the simple life.
I remember the smells coming home from school, whining over not-so difficult homework, and finishing putting up the Christmas tree in the time my mom spent on the phone with her sister. Life was slower then.
At what point did it start speeding up and at what point will it slow down again? …At least to a point where I don’t feel as if I am tripping over my own feet.
I was on the phone with my mom this morning and she was wondering why some of her siblings in Holland don’t call her more. She said, “People are so busy these days that they forget the really important things in life” (like family). My mom is wise and I think she’s right. The worst part of busyness is that it becomes a god in our lives. We hand over priority to the demands of the calendar and the deadlines. I might be wrong, but I don’t think this is how God intended it. I’m convicted as I write this because I know I am not exempt from my above accusation. I blame work for making me so tired I don’t have time for devotions but have no problem crashing on the couch and watching a little “Psych.” I forget to call friends who I know could use a phone call. We, I, have allowed the world to set our watches and the tics and the tock’s only remind us of how little time we have. What a shame.
At this point, someone much wiser and more eloquent would propose a way in which to rectify such a problem. However, I am not wiser or more eloquent so I must default to a call to action that is probably not all that bad. We, I, have to let God back into our lives. I’m pretty sure He understands being busy (although it really does not phase Him…praise God!!) He created the world which seems like a daunting task for a days work. That alone is sufficient for me. Oh and there’s the whole thing about Christ dying for me so I don’t have to worry about all the busy.
I don’t even really have a conclusion for all of this … much less a solution. Just a bunch of random thoughts of a wonderer.
