“Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It is filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God’s actions. It is taking charge.” Eugene Peterson

As soon as “discipline” came to mind for 2021’s word of the year, so did “get busy.” 

I can’t tell you how much I didn’t want discipline for my word nor busyness as a lifestyle … ever again. I’d spent too much time on events I didn’t want to attend, projects I didn’t want to do, and skipping naps I wanted to take. 

The thought of plunging back into trying hard with no good results made me sick. I lived that way to the detriment of my health and my family. I wanted to practice God’s kind of discipline, not my own. 

Even though I wasn’t sure what God wanted, I knew my self-talk was way off track, Do more. Try harder. Enough is never enough.

I stayed busy with little to show for it. I’d fallen into doing what Lori Richardson, founder and CEO of Score More Sales, said not to do, “Never confuse activity with accomplishment.” 

All I knew to do, and hope it helped, was what a friend suggested, “Do the opposite of what hasn’t been working,” so I started doing the opposite of what Eugene Peterson said in his quote. So far, so good.

Here’s my list …

Busyness is the enemy of spirituality, so I sit still with God. Besides reading the Bible daily, I practice at least one holy habit like praying, journaling, or watching Kirk Cameron’s American Campfire Revival on Facebook or Karen Wheaton’s Front Porch Friends or revisiting Sunday’s sermon. 

Busyness is laziness, so I stop doing just for the sake of doing, even if it’s only for 20 minutes. I do something productive like write part of a blog post or search for an image for it. 

Busyness is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing, so I do one hard thing a day. During the next 100 days, writing a blog post daily is the hard thing.

Busyness is filling my time with my own actions instead of paying attention to God’s actions, so I asked Him what He wanted me to pay attention to. A fellow writer said she wrote every day for a year and Kirk Cameron said, “I’m here for 100 days, are you?” I knew what to do by then – blog for 100 days.

Do you need to break habits of busyness? Do you have a plan?

In This Together,
Kim