Weary and Heavy Laden

This past week has been very busy. With the start of school, endless meetings, job responsibilities, ministry expectations, and the sense that everything I needed to get done would be impossible to accomplish, I have often times felt myself being spent. In a conversation with another pastor and friend this week, I asked the common conversation starter, “So, how have things been going?” His response was one that I know all too well… “Things are good. It’s really busy!” My guess is that busyness is not simply reserved for those in the pastoral profession. Regardless of your particular circumstances, our common plight seems to be that we are just so busy. Between work, school, family, friends, community, church, hobbies…and even God…there are so many who are making demands upon our ever decreasing time.

I came across some interesting information on the busyness of our culture in a book by Kevin DeYoung titled Crazy Busy. Four excerpts are below. The other four I will provide in next week’s article.

• Americans are stressed out. Commuters experience greater levels of stress than fighter pilots and riot police!

• Americans work the longest. British workers put in an extra hour every day compared to Germans and Italians, but that’s still almost an hour less than Americans.

• We have longer work weeks despite our continued improvements in efficiency. In 1967, futurists predicted coming generations would have too much spare time. Testimony before a senate subcommittee claimed that by 1985 the average workweek would be just 22 hours.

• Americans rest way less than other developed nations. While workers in Norway enjoy nearly 70 vacation days per year, workers in the U.S. are busy putting in nearly 14 more work weeks and taking only a negligible amount of time off in comparison. Did we mention that, even with all that time off, Norway is still known for its work ethic and high standard of living?

Speaking to this pandemic of busyness, Lea Iaccoca, former CEO of the Chrysler Corporation, expressed the following in his autobiography:

I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who can't seem to control their own schedules. Over the years, I've had many executives come to me and say with pride: Boy, last year I worked so hard that I didn't take any vacation.' It's nothing to be proud of. I always feel like responding: You dummy. You mean to tell me that you can take responsibility for an $80 million project and you can't plan two weeks of the year to go off with your family and have some fun?

In the midst of all of our busyness, Jesus is calling. In Matthew’s gospel He pleads, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I will speak more to this next week. Right now I have too much else to do…

Weary and heavy laden,

Jason