Corrie ten Boom said "if the devil cannot make us bad he will make us busy". This is one of Satan’s most subtle deceptions - to keep us perpetually “busy” or distracted from important kingdom jobs.

God Himself values work. He worked and still works! He said those that are not working should not eat. The scriptures encourages us not to be slothful in business; but fervent in Spirit; and, serving the Lord (Rom. 12:11). However, we can work to the extreme of being too busy, that we neglect some important things like having enough time for God.

Definitely some works/jobs/discipline are busier, more demanding than others. Doing it with all we have and to the best of our ability is what God demands from us, because this will glorify His name.

Therefore, we must strike a critical balance between being very busy without God and being busy giving our best to the Lord in our vocation.

There is no job that is less important. All jobs deal with life, directly or indirectly. It may even be spiritual/church works. Some works are not appreciated because they are rarely seen, but those seen came to be because of those working behind the scenes. Through these works, we can show God and demonstrate His love to the whole world.

Whatever work we do, we must do it in the name of the Lord (Col 3:17) and all to the glory of God (1Cor. 10:31).

To be busy and not be guilty therefore, some things are critical.

Firstly, we must make time for the things that we care about the most. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be". We must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, (Matthew 6:33) in pursuing our career or school work, (which as well, is our ministerial work), and maintain our relationship with God.

The busyness of life can sometimes take us away from spending time with God. Children, family, jobs, and various spiritual as well as secular responsibilities can pull us in a million directions. They may be important, worthwhile, and Godly endeavors, but can keep us from making time for God. Making time for God requires effort, purposeful attention, and a search of our hearts.

Secondly, we must do our secular or professional work as though God was the CEO of the establishment, remember CCTV is everywhere - for nothing is hidden from His eyes. We must take our works as our ministry/calling/vocation and that is when we can be fulfilled with ourselves and also please God.

Thirdly, we have to avoid time wasting; particularly on irrelevant, mundane, and temporal things. To do this, we must avoid the cares of this world, control our thoughts/minds, spend less time watching television/movies, playing video games, talking on the phone, chatting with people or browsing and using social media sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and so on especially if these things are not essentially adding values to your life and purposes. For instance, the use of Zoom in this COVID-19 era is alarming and taking time off people. You don't have to make all those meetings.

Personally, I am so busy with my work. I remember when I was training, I have to report for the day's work at 5am even though I may just be leaving work at 4am. So there was no time to even sleep, not to talk of waste. It was so bad that for about a year or so, I could not attend Sunday worship service because we were always in the theatre. There was no time for quiet time, more so a lengthy one.

What we devised eventually was to start worship even while operating in the theatre, since almost all of us doctors and nurses are Christians. Most times, I returned late at night such that my quiet time was mostly in the night rather than in the morning.

Fortunately, around this time, there was improvement in technology with advent of mobile phones, I used to listen to audio Bible on my phones. All these efforts were to ensure that I am not disconnected from God. If you know that your strength and success is from God, you will do all to remain close to Him (Acts 17:28a For in him we live, and move, and have our being..).

Lastly, as busy as we may be, there will be short periods of time we may have in between. Let us use these times to get closer to God and to add values to ourselves. It is not compulsory that you must only pray in the morning, pray all the time available to you, even if in the toilet! Spending quality five minutes with God is better than when you spend more time but your mind is not fully there. If you can develop a routine, that’s better but if you are needed during the routine period you must attend to such.

To conclude, Ravi Zacharias said “The biggest battle you will face in life is your daily appointment with God; keep it, or every other battle will become bigger.” This is more so for very busy people but we can succeed if we follow some examples of Jesus Christ. Like someone said, there will be some crazy days when one's scheduled time gets upended. Don’t get discouraged! When we look at the times Jesus spent time alone with God, we see that his “quiet time” varied too! No matter the time of day, Jesus showed us that it is important to make time for The Father. This is what will give us true rest, renewal, and a time to recharge for what our busy days hold.

Credit: We thank Pastor (Prof.) Edward Komolafe for writing today's post. Professor Komolafe is a consultant neurosurgeon and lecturer at OAUTHC and OAU, Ile - Ife. His passionate dedication to his neurosurgery practice is an unassailable example for everyone who intends to go far in life.

Good morning and have a good day.

© SELAH SERIES 2020