Is This What the Lord Really Wants?

So many of us are busy beyond belief. Sports practice and events. Music lessons and events. Pampered Chef. Scouts. Civic organizations. "We meet ourselves coming and going," as my mother used to say. Do we Christians ever stop to ask whether this is really what the Lord wants for us? Where is the precedent for these things in the Bible? Is this really what the Christian life is all about?

I challenge you to believe that it's not. I'm not saying these things are wrong. I'm saying they have taken over, and they govern our lives. One of my prayer partners is way too busy, and she knows it. So why doesn't she stop, or at least slow down?

I know a woman in her mid-70's, who is still actively teaching in the public schools, and is engaged in many church activities, clubs, committees, etc., pushing herself to the point of collapse all the time. Now her husband's health is seriously declining, which challenges her on a different level, and she's talking about getting him back to a functional level before school starts. Does she ever ask herself why she drives herself like this?

I am reminded of a retired college president whom I heard speak at a missionary conference. His first wife had Alzheimers Disease. She would walk back and forth between their house and his office multiple times a day to try to find him. One night, as he was helping her get ready for bed, he saw that her feet were bloody. It was a moment of truth. He said, "The college can get a new president, but my wife cannot get another husband." He resigned immediately to stay home with her, and care for her until she died. This is the Christian response. This man had his priorities in the right order.

Remember the saying, "No one on his/her deathbed ever wishes they'd spent more time at the office." If my teacher friend in her 70's goes back to teaching school,leaving her husband languishing at home, she'll collapse in the doing, and regret her choices later, if she even lives to regret it. Does the school really need her more than her husband does? Of course not!

If we are so busy that we have to push people away, we are wrong, no matter what else is going on. Something even worse scares me. Are we trying to earn merit with God? Do we fear being thought of as lazy? Most evangelical Christians would assert to the contrary. Really? They need to think again. Scripture says, "Many will say in that day, 'Lord, Lord! Didn't we do many wonderful works in your Name.'" And He could say He doesn't know them (intimately). That's what I fear the most.

I would rather be thought of as lazy in the eyes of people, and be intimately known by God. Wouldn't you? Frenetically busy people don't take time to be intimately known by God. I think they're wrong.