Are You Really “Too” Busy or Are You Just Too Preoccupied? By Celeste Talley

You make time for the things that you care about. Point blank. I know that this may sound harsh, which is not my intent, but it’s true. You find time to check your Facebook account, your email inbox, your Instagram and Twitter pages and you may even squeeze in time to watch one of your favorite shows or movies. These are just a few popular examples of excuses most people, even some Christians, use when justifying the fact that they don’t have time to do certain things. The reality of this is that someone doesn’t have time because he or she doesn’t make time. They are simply not making a conscious, intentional effort to make time for the things that they “say” they care about. Despite what someone may say, one’s actions speak louder than words. It may sound like a cliché, but again: it is true.

God calls us as Christians to be holy; we are to be set apart from those who are not in Christ. This means that our behavior, our thoughts, our characteristics, our personality traits and, most importantly, our reaction to sin is different from those who are in the world. 1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” In essence, we love things that Christ loves. We don’t need to be checking to see how many “likes” we can get from the selfies we take, or how many good comments we get on our Facebook statuses or things we’ve tweeted on Twitter. Our main focus should be on what God has called us to do which is to make disciples of all nations, as it tells us in Matthew 28:19. There is nothing inherently wrong with getting “likes” and taking selfies; it is, however, sinful when we are doing these things just to see how how much praise we will get from our own social media pages.  Even though we may not want to admit it, this is considered idolatry. We are called to worship one God and one God alone. This is the Triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Worshiping anything other than the God of the Bible is sinful.

So whether we become too preoccupied with social media or we find something else that hinders us from doing the things that we truly care about, it is important to point back to Scripture. Why is it that you can’t find time in your “busy” schedule to do this or that? It all eventually boils down to sin of some kind. You didn’t read your Bible this morning because you didn’t have “time.” The real reason you didn’t read your Bible is because you chose to get a few extra minutes or extra hour of sleep. You chose to not go to bed on time and did not get enough sleep. The reason you didn’t go to bed on time could have been for a number of different reasons, but you made a conscious decision to get more sleep rather than reading God’s Word. This is something that He has called all believers to do; it is not up for debate or discussion. Or, maybe you decided that you’d rather go shopping than to take some time to read your Bible and pray. If you were to ask my husband John about me, he would know how much I love to shop—and there have been times I would be gone for hours, but then failed to read my Bible on that particular day. It happens; I totally get it because it has happened to me too.  Perhaps even, one may have chosen to go and hang out with your friends on a Sunday morning rather than going to church to worship God and be in community with other members of the Body of Christ. Maybe you wanted to skip out on a Bible study or community group simply because you did not feel like going. All these reasons for missing important parts of the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life are not acceptable.

I admit that I too have succumbed to poor excuses like these sometimes with various spiritual disciplines. We need to remember that when we stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, He will ask us how we have stewarded what He has given us.  We will not be let into Heaven’s gates because we had good excuses as to why we did not do what He has called and commanded us to do as believers. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. A true sign of a believer is his perseverance and submitting to God’s word. John 14:15 says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” This means that God has commanded us to follow everything He has called us to do; we will stumble and fall short at times, but we will persevere until the end. We will allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, repent daily and die to ours sins.  If we do not repent and believe in Jesus Christ whom God the Father sent to suffer and die on the cross and that He resurrected from the grave on the third day, we will face God’s eternal wrath and judgement. He will say, “…I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”  Our good works cannot save us, nor will our good excuses. God saves the humble, those who repent of their sins and believe in the Gospel. Would one want others to tell that individual that one was too busy to call, too busy to spend time with him or her or to even share a meal together? What would you think if your fellow brother or sister in Christ told you that he or she hasn’t been spending time reading God’s Word or been consistent in prayer time? Time after time, excuse after excuse after excuse, over and over with the same types of excuses, would you be complacent and accept what he or she tells you? So think next time you tell someone that you are too busy. God will not accept our lackluster excuses as a means to accept us into His kingdom, so we should not expect others to be okay with our excuses either.