These will be as I highlighted them in the book. Exact words (with slight modifications here and there for myself) from the author.
I don't include notes from every chapter/section. I'm merely keeping these notes for myself to look back on, so I can pass this book on to someone else.
If you like what you see, I definitely recommend this read!
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1 Kings 20:40- is not trying to tackle the problem of busyness, but the line in verse 40 strikes me as a perfect description for our age. We are here and there and everywhere. We are distracted. We are preoccupied. We can't focus on the task in front of us. We don't follow through. We don't keep our commitments. We are so busy with a million pursuits that we don't even noticed the most important things slipping away.
We have more opportunity than ever before.
The result, then, is simple but true: because we can do so much, we do do so much. Our lives have no limits.
The first danger is that busyness can ruin our joy.
The second danger is that busyness can rob our hearts. Do you know why retreats and mission trips and summer camps and Christian conferences are almost always good for your spiritual growth? Because you have to clear your schedule to do them. You get away. You set aside your normal insanity to a weekend and find the space to think, pray, and worship.
The third danger is that busyness can cover up the rot in our souls. The hectic pace of life can make us physically sick.
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It's not wrong to be kind. In fact, it's the mark of a Christian to be a servant. But people- pleasing is something else. People often call it low self-esteem, but people-pleasing is actually a form of pride and narcissism.
Pats on the back. This is the most obvious kind of price: living for praise.
Posting. If we're honest, pride lies behind much of the social media revolution. I've often had to ask myself, "Why am I blogging? Why am I tweeting? Is it for my name and my fame?"
So how can we tell when we are frantic and overwhelmed because of pride and when we are busy for nobler reasons?
Am I trying to make myself look good?
Opening our home to others is a wonderful gift and a neglected discipline in the church. But we easily forget the whole point of hospitality. Think of it this way: Good hospital-its is making your a home a hospital. The idea is that friends and family and the wounded and weary people come to your home and leave helped and refreshed.
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- at time, opportunities have felt like obligations to me.
It's easy for preachers and leaders, or just plain old Christian friends, to pound away at "more"- we should pray more, give more, show hospitality more, share our faith more, read our Bibles, more, volunteer more.
I am not Christ. Even Jesus didn't do it all. We have been given statistics and stories about the all-too-sad conditions of the world. The good news of Christ's death and resurrection, has been turned into bad news about all the problems in the world and how much more we have to do to make things right. Care is not the same as do. We can't do something about everything, but we can care. We have different gifts and different callings. I can always pray right now.
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I have often marveled to think that Jesus was so terrifically busy, but only with the things he was supposed to be doing. Jesus knew the difference between urgent and important. He understood that all the good things he could do were not necessarily the things he ought to do. He was not driven by the approval of others. He understood His mission. Jesus was driven by the Spirit, by his God-given mission.
What is your mission? What are you priorities?
We have to make it our mission to stay on mission.
Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It's about effectively serving others in the ways I'm best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve.
I must allow others to set their own priorities. Don't think it rude if some people have less availability for you then you have for them. And don't begrudge people the time you are so desperately fighting for.
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Parenting has become more complicated than it needs to be. God doesn't provide very many specifics on the parent-child relationship, except that parents should teach their children about God, discipline them, be thankful for them, and not exasperate them. Filling in the details depends on the family, the culture, the Spirit's wisdom, and a whole lot of trial and error.
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As little as four or five years ago I didn't do anything on my phone and barely ascended the Internet at home. I'm not suggesting those days were purer and nobler, but my life felt less scattered and less put-upon. There's no doubt that some things are better because we are wired to everything. But there is a danger than we are never alone; never wanting to be alone. "We want to complexify our lives. We don't have to, we want to. We want to be harried and hassled and busy. Unconsciously, we want the very things we complain about. ... that hole is so big that nothing but God can fill it."
How can we walk out when everyone else is staying in?
It's amazing the way my impatience works. If I text someone, I expect a response in seconds. If I email, I might allow for a couple of hours, but with friends I expect to hear back in a matter of minutes. - We must allow the slow replies and short replies.. they are not rude. Don't expect that with every tap that the other person has to turn his head.
Deliberately use old technology.
Read a real book, write a paper letters, call someone on the phone, turn off the radio, go on a run without music, stop at a brick-and-mortar store.
We cannot have meaningful relationships with thousands of people. We cannot really know what's going on in the world.
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The reason we are busy is because we are supposed to be busy.
The busyness that's bad is not the busyness of work, but the busyness that works hard at the wrong things. It's being busy trying to please people, busy trying to control others, busy trying to do things we haven't been called to do.
One of the reasons we struggle to mightily with busyness is because we do not expect to struggle.
Whether you live in the East or the West, you will suffer if you are committed to people.
Paul was busy in the right ways. If you love God and serve others, you will be busy too. Sometimes we will get frazzled. We will feel pressure. We will be tired. We will get discouraged. We will be exhausted. But be encouraged. God uses weak things to shame the strong.
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We go day after day, month after crazy month: worried, upset, anxious, troubled, fussing, worked up. If you are sick and tired of feeling so dreadfully busy and are looking for a one-point plan to help restore order to your life, this is the best advice I know: devote yourself to the Word of God and prayer. By sitting at the feet of Jesus, we will grow more like him- more patient, more loving, more thoughtful. The only thing more important than ministry is being ministered to.
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