Bait Shop Wall 4 – Busy Spinning Out of Control
There are different kinds of lures in the bait shop. Some look like smaller fish, some like worms, some like flying insects and some are shiny and spinning. They lure the fish in all sorts of ways. Those lures pull us into all kinds of trouble. That spinning one makes it look like a lot of activity and yet nothing is really going on. We can get caught up in that though all the time. It seems as if we can just stay busy then our life has meaning. Most of the time we treat it as a badge of honor to say we are busy. How many times do we answer the question “How are you doing?” with the answer that we are busy. I think many a person has been caught by the lure of business and think that they will not end up on the bait shop wall.
How do we ignore the spinning bait when it is so shiny and so tempting. The Bible has some thoughts about being busy and what we need to do about finding moments of rest and recovering.
The Lie: If I Just Swim Faster I’ll be Able to Finally Catch Up
Solomon was a wise king who lived a long time ago, but understood life in a special way. He wrote in a book at the end of his life. He writes in Ecclesiastes 4:4 – 6 (TEV) “I have also learned why people work so hard to succeed: it is because they envy the things their neighbors have. But it is useless. It is like chasing the wind. They say that we would be fools to fold our hands and let ourselves starve to death. Maybe so, but it is better to have only a little, with peace of mind, than be busy all the time with both hands, trying to catch the wind.” We stay swimming after that lure because we feel we need those things our neighbors have. It is the lie that if we work harder we can have more, and will find happiness.
Solomon compares it to trying to catch the wind. We get so caught up in trying to catch it that we never realize that we will never catch but instead will be caught by our busyness. I’m not saying don’t work for things and don’t work hard, I just hope we understand that work is a part of life, not life itself. I know we have to work to be able to live, but it cannot become our life. That lure will keep spinning faster and faster wanting us to chase it until the one day we catch it and realize that it actually caught us.
We Need to Follow the Example Jesus & God Gave Us
In the poem at the beginning of the Bible it tells about creation and that on six days God worked on creation and then the seventh day he took a day off. “By the seventh day God finished what he had been doing and stopped working. He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day, because by that day he had completed his creation and stopped working. And that is how the universe was created. When the LORD God made the universe.” Genesis 2:2 – 4 (TEV) Even God stopped at the end of His work and took a rest. I’m not sure about you, but I am not God and if He needs a day to recover then so do I.
Jesus even took time while he was walking the earth with his disciples. One day the people were pressing in on Jesus for healings and help. Right in the midst of a big crowd he turns and looks at his friends and says “Let’s get out of here, and take some time to rest.” Mark 6:31 – 32 in the Today’s English Version tells the story like this: There were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples didn’t even have time to eat. So he said to them, “Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and you can rest a while.” So they started out in a boat by themselves to a lonely place. He stopped when people were needing him and his work was not finished and just walked away. Maybe we need to learn a lesson from him that just because there is work to be done we don’t have to do it today. Any work we leave so that we can rest knowing that work will be there tomorrow.
The Wisdom of Taking a Nap or a Day
David wrote these thoughts a long time ago, but it could really be a good wake-up call for us today. “It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?” Psalm 127:2 (MSG) To think that God see our rest as a gift from him to us. His love for us calls us to take a day off or to simply take a nap.
There are three things that we can get from our rest. Three gifts God gives us and honestly that we can give ourselves.
Resting our body. If we do not take care of ourselves no one else is going to. All the science shows that we need to get the proper rest for our bodies to function correctly. I am a napper by choice. It is the middle of the afternoon that I can catch about a ten minute nap at my desk and I am good to go the rest of the day. It is amazing how different the rest of the day goes if I get that nap.
Recharging our emotions. My anger grows the more tired I am. I think we all know that it is true in our lives that if we are worn out and tired then our emotions can just go haywire at times. So the best thing we can do for some of our relationships is to just stop and take a break.
Refocusing our spirit. Funny to think that the greatest act of worship we can do sometimes is to rest. To remember that the Sabbath was made for us not us for the Sabbath. To stop and take sometime can realign our spirits with God’s Spirit and reconnect that relationship again.
I know that I am writing this for you to read but it is truly for me to read. I was raised and taught that you were only as good as the day’s work you put in. Being called lazy for sitting down was not uncommon. Even now at 53 years old I can still hear my step-father telling me to get up and go do something productive. So as an adult though I struggle to relax at times but I know that is what God has called us to do. If we get caught up trying to work ourselves to death then we will accomplish just that. So find time to get away, take a nap, leave early or go in late. Most of all just find a time to resist the lure of business.