The Fall of The Busy Bee

I had someone invite me to something recently. “I understand if you can’t come,” he said, “pastors are really busy.”

What a sad commentary on the expectation that pastors don’t have time for people because of their schedules. There’s something wrong with that. I know, I know. There are sermons to prepare, office hours to keep, events to plan, presentations to make, Bible studies to prepare for, volunteers to organize, budgets to manage, content to create, and meetings to have. We get our routines together just to have someone go into the hospital and need to visit them–bringing stress to our schedules because they are already jammed pack full of administrative tasks we have burdened ourselves with. You know, people other than pastors also have this problem. Our schedules are so full we can’t get anything done.

Consider the way Jesus lived His life on this earth until the crucifixion. He is our greatest example. He was not busy. His schedule was simple, not complicated. No matter what He was doing, He always made Himself available to people. He was interruptible. Nowhere in Scripture do we see someone saying, “I know you are busy, but can you…” Jesus did not live a busy life. He lived a simple one.

Solomon said in a Proverb:

4 Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, 
Cease from your consideration of it.
5 When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. 
For wealth certainly makes itself wings 
Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens. 
(Proverbs 23:4-5)

Labor is good, but not to the point of the dissolution of our bodies and minds. Money will be gone anyway, so it is a vain pursuit. The same is true in ministry. Anything we hope to gain by adding more labor is fleeting. Too many pastors are out there abusing their bodies, minds, and even relationships because they have a laundry list of to-dos. In the modern-day, most of that, I think, is content creation and administration. The work will always be there. Learn how to cease from it, or you will work yourself to death and never gain a thing.

When Jesus visited Mary and Martha, Martha busied herself and Mary sat with Jesus. Martha was the distraught one, not Mary. Martha asked Jesus if Mary should just be sitting there while she served. Jesus answered:

41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; 
42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42). 

You try to do so many things, but only one thing is necessary. Many of us need to simply take a moment to remember this today. We can’t be hospitable if we are always laboring. This gives us quite the challenge for pastors in the modern day. Stop working so much. Instead, be available.

I was once the type of pastor who said I needed about 40 hours of study and preparation for the sermon. I also tended to host two additional Bible studies during the week. I was keeping this blog and publishing several podcasts that reached more than 30 thousand unique people every year. My content was even rated #1 in a couple countries. I was publishing in every language, and there were people who wanted to translate my books for their countries. While I was pastoring, I founded a non-profit ministry dedicated to equipping pastors and training missionaries abroad. At one point, we were training and commissioning more than 500 new pastors simultaneously. I never stopped working. Now, I look back and see how those ministries and churches are doing without me, and they are perfectly fine. They didn’t need me after all because they had the Holy Spirit. I am persuaded that if I would have done nothing, God still would have won His reward. I saw what I did as service to God, but it was clearly against the instructions we see in Scripture. I idolized how much I was doing. It may have looked good when I bragged about it from a worldly perspective, but it did not glorify God. I wasn’t available in the things that mattered. We busy ourselves with so much, but according to Jesus only one thing is necessary. Learn to cease.

I’m not that person anymore, thank God. These days you’ll find me laboring in the mornings and simply being available after lunch and into the evenings. I know the expectation is that pastors are really busy all the time, especially the paid pastors. In reality, we are paid not so we can labor in the world, but so we can be free from the labor of the world and be available to the saints.

Let’s consider today how to guard ourselves from the sin of busyness so we can be more hospitable. May it be said less of pastors that we are too busy to be like Jesus, accept invitations, and be joyfully interruptible.

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