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PROGRAM D-7381
Have you noticed that telling each other how busy we are has become a fairly common mantra for greetings today? “Hi, how are you,” we say, “Oh, busy, really busy. How are you?” comes the reply. “Yeah, me too. Just don’t have enough hours in the day,” we respond. And so it goes.
Busyness is a way of life—and it’s true, we are pretty busy people. But are we confusing activity with accomplishment? Is perpetual motion a substitute for effectiveness? I believe our lifestyles have become so swallowed up with activity that we often don’t even have time to consider if we’re doing anything important or not. As long as we’re moving, we must be okay, right?
Of course, technology has played right into this whole idea of staying busy. The pace of life has shifted into a higher gear than ever before simply because we have so many ways of communicating. None of us would want to go back to the days when life was of necessity much slower because we lacked modern conveniences and technology. But I think we need to ask ourselves if we are sometimes deceived into thinking we are productive, when maybe we’re just staying busy. Both as employees and as managers, we need to be careful not to judge accomplishment by activity.
Paul wrote: “Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air” (1 Cor. 9:26). Paul understood the difference between activity and accomplishment. He was talking about the difference between looking good and doing good. In that same chapter he says, “Run in such a way as to get the prize.”
Years ago God convicted me that too often I found my self-worth in my busyness. It was truly a prideful thing on my part to report on my busy schedule. It’s something I still pray about, because it’s so easy to be self-deceived and confuse activity with accomplishment.