Being busy...

"I've been really busy sorry"
"It's just been such a busy week"
"I'll get round to it when I'm not so busy"
"I've been so busy I've barely had time to talk to them about it"

Being busy...
It's such a common term. Everyone is busy, it's an answer to the question of how we've been, it's an expected thing for every student, parent and worker.

But today God started to teach me that being busy is not necessarily a measure of how much we do during the day, but more of an attitude, a state of being, a way of experiencing life.
Sometimes we don't even realise how busy we are, but the people around you can be pretty accurate judges. If you are a busy person then even when you're not doing anything, you carry the "aura" of busyness with you. And the people you do life with can feel it... they feel how when you're talking with them, you're already thinking about what you'll do after them. You're usually never fully present when you're spending time together and your life has a quickness and rush to it even if you're sitting still or walking slowly.
Busy people will always apologise for being busy, being frantic and always having to rush away... but it's not what they're doing, it's who they are.

I was trying to work out the relationship between being a busy person and doing lots... because there is one, I just don't think it's how we thought.
I think that maybe busy people tend to do a lot because it's hard for them to relax, they feel wasteful and useless and nervy when they're not doing something. Maybe this is a deeper issue about where their self worth lies, I'm not sure. But as a result they fill their days up with lots of jobs and people and errands and activities because then there is a reason they feel busy, it becomes an external circumstance rather than an inner issue.

On the other hand there are people who are responsible for a lot, work long hours, have young children or organise lots of people... yet there is a calmness about them, a stillness about their life. When they're with you, they are fully present, fully engaged. These are the kind of people who if you walk into their office, they will put aside their work to put your presence and need first, then get the other work done later (coincidentally these people also have wonderful time management skills!)

And today, I felt God was saying to me "I don't want you to be busy this year"
My first thought was that I have a lot on this year, that it was always going to have been a busy year.
But He said "You will still do all those things, but I don't want you to be busy in the midst of it. I don't want that for any of My children"

"Busy is a drug lots of people are addicted to" - Rob Bell