Busyness isn’t a Badge of Honor

Journal Entry Date: June 27, 1996

“I tried to visit two of my care families tonight. One was in jail until July 8, the other was home and we had a good visit. It really felt good to get this part of my ministry going. It may take me awhile, but it’s all in God’s timing. I can tell that I should visit this guy in jail to see how I can minister to him.

I’m hoping that by serving God as He has called me will allow my other responsibilities and time demands to be handled according to His plan. Am I just getting in God’s way by not doing what He’s called me to do?”


Author’s Note: I began learning how to make God my top priority, but I was still hanging on to all those other optional commitments that were sapping my time and energy. It gave me an ego boost when people would ask me to be involved in something… I displayed my busyness for all to see, like some kind of badge of honor. It made me feel special or important… like everything would collapse in ruin if I wasn’t involved. But in reality, many of those activities were simply distracting me from being focused on what was truly important.

I was placing more emphasis on ‘doing’ things for God instead of ‘abiding’ in Him and developing a deeper fellowship with Him. By getting this backward, I was serving God in my own strength and out of some sense of obligation. However, when I would learn to focus on my personal relationship with God as my first priority… when I grow and develop and mature in my love for Christ… then my ‘doing’ becomes a natural outflow of what I’ve found and experienced in my ‘abiding.’

It would take much more time to learn these lessons… but God wasn’t (and still isn’t) finished with me yet!