busy = good, right?

7:15 am: Get up, get ready for class, work
7:45 am: Drive to class, work - educational radio going, or perhaps earphones in, studying Hebrew paradigms and grammar.
8:00 am - noon: Work, study, go to class
noon - 12:30 pm: Eat, and might as well study or get some extra work done while chewing. Save some time, get more done.
12:30 - 4:30 pm: work, class, study. Walk fast, get things done. "Time is money, and a penny saved is a penny earned." Doing well. Bustle.
4:30 pm: Drive back from work, class. Make some calls (thank goodness for cell phones), arrangements, schedule that meeting (where's my calendar?).
5:00 pm: Devotions! Didn't have time this morning. Ok. Two chapters - check. Pray - check. Read a few pages of that recent book on how to live right. Ok, accomplished.
...

What connection—or contrast—is there between utter busyness and living for the glory of God? I have used a full schedule as an attempted testament to others - and myself - that I must be serving well, that I must be living life well, that I’m “carpe-ing the diem.” Could this be a lie…?

Is there any reason that, just because I am rushing from one activity to another, I am living in a way that is pleasing to God? Isn’t it all too possible to go through a whole day of jumping from one (good or wholesome) activity to another, and come to the end of the day - realizing that I hardly approached any of those activities truly in reference to God? We think of “devotions” as something we do—but have we forgotten the lifestyle of true devotion: a lifestyle oriented to God and lived in worship? Perhaps the one mindset—obsession with activity nearly for its own sake—has eclipsed the life of worship.

I never want to have a chosen pattern of life that is too busy to allow me to be interrupted. To drop everything and be fully present in that unexpected conversation, that moment to encourage another, or that time of uninterrupted and unmeasured prayer, confession, gratitude, appreciation. To simply stand and drink in the richness of the scent of fall leaves; to pause and truly pray for someone without simply formulaic and efficient words rushed out while mind already has jumped to the next daily task; to truly contemplate Christ as our treasure, even when we stand before God, stripped of all activity and bustle.

Thanks to Calvin College's chaplain for expanding on these thoughts in one of my classes, especially as related to the use of technology and its effect on our lives—harming our ability to truly be still and silent.