BUSYNESS AND POWER

And as your servant was BUSY here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said to him, so shall your judgment be; you have decided it – 1 Kings 20:40

Carnal “BUSYNESS” can prevent the Supernatural Power of God from clothing and flowing through a believer. Some Christians are so involved in numerous activities, jumping from meeting to meeting, without even a chance to pause and catch their breath. Such hurried, hassled, busy believers rarely have time to walk in the Spirit and allow God to release His power through them. This type of person tends to ignore the quiet promptings of the Lord. Many people are trapped in the ‘Tyranny of the Urgent’: the urgent things in life keep them from doing the important things in life! Human beings are created with different gifts, talents, and circumstances, but are all equal with regard to “time”: We each have the same amout of time to accomplish our diverse life assignments. Irrespective of our background, gifts, and talents, each of us has 24 hours each day – no more and no less. How you spend this uniformly available gift of time is a reflection of where your heart is, what your priorities are, and what or who you worship.

The interesting story in 1 Kings 20 describes how through one of the prophets, God had told the king of Israel that the king of Syria was going to come up against Israel and that the former was to destroy this enemy king. Unfortunately, the king of Israel disobeyed God and let the king of Syria live. The lesson of “the danger of busyness” is encapsulated in the Story within the Story, which the disguised prophet told the king (vv.38-40). The summary: A servant was out in the battle field and someone brought him a very important prisoner and told him to guard this prisoner. If for any reason he let the prisoner escape, his life would have to pay for the prisoner’s life. In verse 40 is a tragic conclusion: the prisoner escaped while the servant was “busy here and there.” Then the king realised that the prophet was telling him what was going to happen to him.

Many of God’s people are “busy here and there” and end up neglecting their primary responsibilities. They may be doing things that are worthwhile and not necessarily evil, but they are not the most important things or that one should be engaged in who is entrusted to guard a prisoner. Before we quickly condemn the young soldier in the story, we need to turn our eyes inward and individually ask ourselves: “Am I busy here and there?” “Am I so busy on many things that I let the most important things go undone?” “What are the more important things in life that I might have left undone?” These would differ from person to person, but would likely include: reading and studying the Bible daily; praying without ceasing; spending time with family, especially spouse and children; reading good books regularly; attending christian fellowship consistently; visiting the vulnerable – the sick, prisoners, and elderly; writing letters to or phoning people we care about; and learning a new skill or language.

The list could go on, but the main thing is to pray and discover from God if you are spending your time the way He wants you to. You cannot do anything about the years gone by, but you can make a decision to stop being “busy here and there” henceforth. You can choose to invest time to do productive things under God’s guidance. The wiser use of time is to spend more time proactively “creating” rather than “reacting.” If we must be dependable carriers and worthy Stewards of God’s Power, we periodically need to pause and reflect. One of the important things that could be getting crowded out by the urgent things in our lives is making enough free time to be anointed with the Power of God, and then going out into the highways and byways of life as He directs, to let His Supernatural Power flow out to the sick, the oppressed, the possessed, the hungry, the homeless, and the needy.