busyness

So, I have had a draft sitting here over a week that I have not made the time to go back and write. Really, I have had the idea since before Thanksgiving. This post is called busyness. Ironic much? I think yes.I loathe the word busy. It always sticks in my throat, my ears, my heart, my fingers now even as I write. Busy."I'm too busy to..." Fill in the blank. It is as if we are victims of our schedules. Pressured beyond capacity. Never enough.I have felt the suffocating squeeze, even recently. Of not being able to do enough. Do it all. Do enough. Be enough.But may I tenderly suggest that is the beautiful, freeing truth? We can not do it all. We are not enough. I am not the answer. I am not I AM.The Eternal One before all time, the beginning and the end, He is the One who is I AM. He is enough. He has done it all. It is finished. He Himself is our rest.And so now, Christ Himself in me (Who is my peace, Who is my rest) gives me a yoke and a burden that is not troublesome. Is it work? Indeed, yes. Will it take more than I can give? Most assuredly. But it is Christ in me Who is at work both to will and to do His good pleasure.And where He calls, where He leads, where His Good Shepherd's voice speaks, I can step with confidence and peace. Trusting in the great I AM.Does He now know how many hours are in a day? Did He not create the sun and the moon and the earth to know its orbit? Does He  not know my frame intimately? My days? The number of them, the sequence of them, the pace of them?I cannot believe any longer that my Good Shepherd will suffocate me with pressure to do more than His power working through me can accomplish in one day.So I am not a victim of busyness any longer. It is not an excuse for not doing what He has clearly led to do. It is not an excuse for shortness or frustration gurgling up. It is not an excuse to not see, be aware, be present. Will I still falter? For sure. But busyness is not my excuse. My sin is my responsibility. I am not a victim of time.We were not created to be bound by time. As eternal beings meant for life forever, this broken world in which we are all dying presses in against the eternity in our hearts. We all have experienced spans of time that simultaneously feel long and short. I sincerely believe in the depths of my being that this is because we were not meant to be bound to time, to endings, to death. But for life forever! Those disorienting moments so full of life speak of a dizzying glory that is eternity placed in our hearts to woo us to the Lamb of God Who is the One Who holds the Book of Life. Life forever. Not bound. Not ending.But here, now, on earth. He knows our days. He knows the hours in those days. He has good works prepared before the foundations of the world for His children to walk in. And a "Yes" to Him is a glorious "No" to anything else. We cannot do it all. We cannot be it all. He is. We are finite. He is infinite. Oh, glory!So of course you cannot do it all. Glory in this! Do not blame busyness. And of course you will grow distracted instead of being present, or choose self-preservation over the risk of self-giving, or remain uncommitted and double-minded instead of committing in a sound mind. Do not blame busyness. These things are our choices.Please know, the word "busy" in and of itself is not wrong. But know most assuredly, for my own heart, I cannot use it anymore. It sticks and catches on everything that presses against Life and life to the full.Let us press into the One Who breathes life into every moment. The One Who knows our frame. Our days. Our hearts. And let us live! In a glorious "Yes" to Him. Let it be, Lord Jesus!