Lazy...me?

I read a convicting article this morning by C. J. Mahaney called "Are You Busy?" This one hit home with me! I'm a planner who lives by lists and check marks, calendars and schedules, always trying to get things done, pack more into life, and get the slower people around me to either pick up the pace or pack up and step aside so I can do it myself. :-) This was a timely reminder to me about priorities, and about what really matters.

Here's an excerpt:

Lazy? Not me. I’m busy. Up early, up late. My schedule is filled from beginning to end. I love what I do and I love getting stuff done. I attack a daily to-do list with the same intensity I play basketball. Me lazy? I don’t think so!

Or at least I didn’t think so. That is, until I read about the difference between busyness and fruitfulness, and realized just how often my busyness was an expression of laziness, not diligence.

I forget now who first brought these points to my attention. But the realization that I could be simultaneously busy and lazy, that I could be a hectic sluggard, that my busyness was no immunity from laziness, became a life-altering and work-altering insight. What I learned is that:

• Busyness does not mean I am diligent
• Busyness does not mean I am faithful
• Busyness does not mean I am fruitful
  

Recognizing the sin of procrastination, and broadening the definition to include busyness, has made a significant alteration in my life. The sluggard can be busy—busy neglecting the most important work, and busy knocking out a to-do list filled with tasks of secondary importance.

When considering our schedules, we have endless options. But there are a few clear priorities and projects, derived from my God-assigned roles, that should occupy the majority of my time during a given week. And there are a thousand tasks of secondary importance that tempt us to devote a disproportionate amount of time to completing an endless to-do list. And if we are lazy, we will neglect the important for the urgent.


I so desire to be fruitful, faithful, and diligent for God! May He help me to follow Him and give Him my time, my schedule, my priorities--my life!

~Kirsten