"How are you?" 

"Busy."

That is the standard response for most of us. No one responds to this question and says, "Well, I'm not doing much of anything right now. I'm actually very unproductive." And we wear this busyness almost as a badge of honor. Kevn Vanhoozer et. al, authors of Everyday Theology, write, "As we complain about the spreadsheet to prepare for tomorrow's meeting or the quick drive from clarinet lessons to soccer practice, we may fall prey to the trap of 'actually making a kind of boast: 'I'm so busy, I must be important.'" 

Being busy is not necessarily bad. And it is not necessarily good. It all depends on why we are busy and what we are busy doing--and whether or not we have times that we are not busy. Otherwise we live outside of our limits, which can cause many health problems.

The pace of life and technology pushes us more and more into busyness. There is so much that we can do, and so much that we are expected to do. We are in constant contact with friends--and bosses. Long commutes and both spouses working steals much family time. Our kids can be involved in activities--often too many activities. The list of things pushing us towards busyness is endless.

In fact, there is virtually nothing in our society saying, "Slow down. Do less." That is why the biblical concept of a Sabbath is so important. 

Think about it. In the ten commandments, one of these top ten commands is to do nothing for a whole day. It is right there with don't sleep with your neighbor's wife or worship other gods. Why is this?

Dallas Willard once said in a class I took that Sabbath keeping--doing nothing for a time--was a spiritual discipline. It is a way of acknowledging that the universe can and will go on without us working. We are not the rulers of the universe--God is. It is a way of acknowledging our dependence upon God. Someone once said that if you work 80 hours a week, you are a megalomaniac, because you think that the world cannot function without you. 

That is an interesting thought. For me, one of my flaws is self-reliance and over working. I don't do this intentionally, but I think that I think in the back of my mind that if something is going to happen, I have to work at making it happen. Unintentionally, this be evidence of a lack of faith, for it leaves very little room for God to do things that I cannot do. And the list of things that I cannot do that God can do is infinitely long. Yet, I can easily, unintentionally, fall into this thinking.

Your struggle with busyness may be entirely different. You may be a single parent. Your boss may actually require you to work 80 hours a week. You may be dealing with a crisis. 

But for the rest of us, in everyday life, I wonder if our busyness might be due to our own self-reliance, desire to feel important and achieve, or lack of faith? In the OT Sabbath, people had to trust that if they did not work on the Sabbath God would still provide. While we are not obligated to keep the literal OT Sabbath, the concept of not working for a day or other time and to trust God will still keep the world going around is a good discipline.

Why do you think we are so busy? Should we keep a "Sabbath" day?