Busyness and Boxes

As you are probably aware the world today seems busier and more frenetic then ever. As someone who works with teenagers I see this evidenced first hand. Students have so much going on in their lives that it often feels overwhelming. They have their schoolwork in one box, work at the grocery store in one box, viola lessons and baseball practice in two more boxes. In reality, what is being stretched here is the concept of time. The culture today is consumed by busyness, so much so that it often runs out of space to put Christ so He is crammed inside a box with the rest of the things that are important to us. And it is certainly not just teenagers that feel this way. I think, if we are honest, the feeling of our lives being too busy or too frenetic has affected everyone at one point or another.

As a follower of Christ, I often find myself guilty of the fact of putting Jesus in a box. I spend twenty minutes of my time each morning with Jesus and then I put the box away. But, in reality, Jesus does not want to be put into a box, not even the biggest one. Our goal, however, should be to give Jesus our boxes, not so He can find a space that works for Him. but so He can empty the boxes and place Himself at the center.

The story that jumps immediately to my mind when I think of busyness is that of Mary and Martha (Lk. 10:38-42). Martha knows that she is going to spend time with Jesus so she wants everything to be perfect, so much so that she forsakes the very thing that she hoped to do. I often find myself falling in the same trap. We become busy with making our devotions perfect and completely forget that the purpose of our time with Christ is not meant to be perfection but the time in the first place.

This is shown beautifully by the example of Mary. Mary, on the other hand, is not consumed by busyness, not distracting herself with tasks to prepare herself to spend time with Jesus. She simply does that. She sits and listens and lets the LORD speak to her. May we have the foresight to do the same.