Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem

Busyness does not mean you are a faithful or fruitful Christian. It only means you are busy, just like everyone else. And like everyone else, your joy, your heart and your soul are in danger.

J. C. Ryle observed, “A man may preach from false motives. A man may write books, and make fine speeches, and seem diligent in good works, and yet be a Judas Iscariot. But a man seldom goes into his closet, and pours out his soul before God in secret, unless he is serious.

We wake up most days not trying to serve, just trying to survive.

Jesus understood his mission. He was not driven by the needs of others, though he often stopped to help hurting people. He was not driven by the approval of others, though he cared deeply for the lost and the broken. Ultimately, Jesus was driven by the Spirit. He was driven by his God-given mission. He knew his priorities and did not let the many temptations of a busy life deter him from his task.

Am I trying to do good or to make myself look good?

What is wrong, and heartbreakingly foolish and wonderfully avoidable, is to live a life with more craziness than we want because we have less Jesus than we need.

The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present. We cannot be any of these things. We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance—and choose wisely.

Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It’s about effectively serving others in the ways I’m best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve.

Most moms and dads think they are either the best or the worst parents in the world. Both are wrong.

We will have to work hard to rest.

we think of our children as amazingly fragile and entirely moldable. Both assumptions are mistaken. It’s harder to ruin our kids than we think and harder to stamp them for success than we’d like.

To paraphrase Titus 3:3, we live as slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in chaos and envy, hassled by others and hassling one another. We are all very busy, but not with what matters

We have to schedule time to be unscheduled.

busyness must start with the one sin that begets so many of our other sins: pride.

It used to be, as far as I can tell, that Christian parents basically tried to feed their kids, clothe them, teach them about Jesus, and keep them away from explosives. Now our kids have to sleep on their backs (no, wait, their tummies; no, never mind, their backs), while listening to Baby Mozart and surrounded by scenes of Starry, Starry Night.

You can borrow time, but you can't steal it.

The more my brain was fed, the hungrier it became.

Opportunities have often felt like obligations to me.

Busyness is like sin: kill it, or it will be killing you.

We are busy because we try to do too many things. We do too many things because we say yes to too many people. We say yes to all these people because we want them to like us and we fear their disapproval.

God gives us Sabbath as a gift; it’s an island of get-to in a sea of have-to.

the happiest and most fulfilled times of my life have all involved a prolonged separation from the Internet.

The less we expect to suffer, the more devastating suffering is to bear.

Battling busyness is a community response.

The people on this planet who end up doing nothing are those who never realize they can't do everything.

We don’t expect to be able to buy anything we want, because we know there is a limit to our money. But somehow we live as if time knew no bounds, when in fact time is much more limited than money.

So much of our busyness comes down to meeting people’s expectations.

We have to believe that hearing from God is our good portion. We have to believe that the most significant opportunity before us every day is the opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus. We won’t rearrange our priorities unless we really believe this is the best one.

But I know from personal experience that some forms of busyness are from the Lord and bring him glory. Effective love is rarely efficient. People take time. Relationships are messy. If we love others, how can we not be busy and burdened at least some of the time?