BUSYNESS & REST - JONATHAN POKLUDA

jonathan pokluda busyness & rest

I don’t know about you, but I have to operate every day with an awareness of my calendar. All day every day, my calendar is updating me and telling me when my next thing is, how far away it is, what time I need to start driving there, and any other details I need to know. I’m only able to focus on the next thing, then the next thing, then the next thing. I have learned that I work best that way, which always makes January a bit of a struggle. I am not sure what your workplace is like, but for me the beginning of the calendar year symbolizes a busy season. The new year begins, and I feel like I hit the ground running every time. Each January, I find myself in retreat mode. We have a staff retreat, a leadership team retreat, an elders retreat, and then a sermon planning retreat where we map out the entire year. And don’t let that word retreat fool you, because nobody’s retreating; it’s all just planning out the upcoming year.

My Mondays start with a management meeting in which I gather with the people who report directly to me to game-plan for the week ahead and debrief from the week past. It’s the time of week I feel like an air traffic controller, and I love it. One Monday morning in January I was prepping for that management meeting. I arrived at one of my favorite local coffee shops a bit early so I could think a little beforehand, and I was pondering how I wanted to be a better encourager to our team in this new year. I knew that good leaders are great encouragers, and I was resolved to devote more time to brainstorming how I could encourage those around me. I began thinking through each person whom I was about to meet with and the words of encouragement I wanted to speak over them. But you know how it goes. In the middle of that exercise, I began to think about all the things we needed to do.

I thought about all of the things from the previous Sunday we needed to talk about. Not to mention the fact that we had another Sunday coming up around the corner. The thoughts just flooded my brain as I sat on the beat-up leather couch in the corner of the coffee shop. Then I had this thought: Busyness is the enemy of encouragement. Think about it—it makes sense, right? It felt divinely inspired. I wrote it down and waited for the team to get there. Once everyone arrived, I started us off by saying, “Hey, this is a thought I had this morning that I want to share with you guys: ‘Busyness is the enemy of encouragement.’” I expected them to grab their phones and tweet out my Monday morning wisdom, but they didn’t. In fact, someone said, “Hey, think about how many things you could put in that blank.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, busyness is the enemy of ___________. You could put so many words there.” And so, we did that exercise. We went around and began to fill that blank with different words. Think about how you would finish the thought: Busyness is the enemy of ___________.

The truth is, we could fill in that blank with any number of words. Busyness is the enemy of happiness, because it steals joy from us when we’re so occupied doing other things. Busyness is the enemy of relationships, because we can’t go deep with other people when we don’t have time to prioritize them. Busyness is the enemy of compassion, because we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to stop and serve those around us. Think about yourself. What is busyness robbing you of?

A PERMISSIBLE SIN I love what my friend said. It shows how inoculated we are to busyness. It is one of those sins that we have let creep in and become so mainstream that we don’t even see it as a big deal—and all the while it is robbing us of the lives Jesus intended us to live. We accept it as a given, as if we have no choice but to live this way. Even worse, we wear busyness as a badge of honor, like it elevates our importance.

This is one of those issues that seems to impact each generation too. College students, young adults, singles, newlyweds, families, empty nesters . . . everyone seems to willingly jump aboard the busyness bandwagon. All of us have a limited amount of time, and we all have the same amount of time. And life is really full. The Pokluda family has three kids in school, playing sports, and that would be enough to occupy most of our weeknights right there. Factor in work, extended family, our small group, friends to see, sermons to write, and meetings to be at, and the hours in the week disappear really quickly!

But don’t for a second think I’m trying to sound important, because I know you have all your own stuff to do. I know, as I am describing my life, that you are thinking about yours. Yeah, practices, assignments, work, studying for the LSAT, family, fixing up the house . . . We all have some sort of working to-do list flooding our minds right now. Some of us are hyperventilating, and I get it. I get it. We are all too busy. But here’s a grim reality that becomes more and more clear to me with each passing year: I don’t like myself when I’m busy. I become a version of myself that I don’t much care for.

And I have a hunch that you also would not like me very much when I am busy, and I probably would not like you very much when you are busy either. When we are moving fast, we don’t love people well. When I am busy, what falls off first is kindness. Then my ability to focus wanes. I may physically be with you, but my mind is writing a sermon or figuring out where I need to be next, and I am not being a good follower of Jesus with you at that moment. I also lose empathy when I am busy. I don’t have time to care.

But what I lose most is my peace and joy. I have noticed that I take on a victim mentality. Don’t you get it? I’m busy! I’m really busy. You just need to understand that I’m busy! And I turn outward and begin to lash out at others because I am a victim of my own busyness. It’s not like I have cancer or some incurable disease. I just didn’t manage my time well. I just didn’t say no to some things. I got myself in this situation that I’m now projecting onto you.

Andy Crouch, a Christian author, says this about busyness:

I have to say “no” to requests many, many times a day. Almost always people are understanding. They often say, “I know you are very busy.” The truth is I am NOT very busy. I try not to be busy at all. But in order for that to be true, I have to say “no” many, many times a day.

We have to discipline ourselves to say no to all sorts of things—even good things—because busyness is a tool the enemy will use to kill our intimacy with Jesus.

Jonathan “JP” Pokluda is the Lead Pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, TX. He was formerly the leader of The Porch in Dallas, TX which grew to be the largest weekly young adult gathering of its kind in the country. JP didn’t come to understand the grace of the Gospel until his early twenties after being involved in different denominational churches his entire life. This ignited a desire in him to inspire young adults to radically follow Jesus Christ and unleash them to change the world. His best-selling book, Welcome to Adulting, offers millennials a road map to navigating faith, finding a spouse, finances, and the future. Following the release of Welcome to Adulting, he wrote Welcome to Adulting: Survival Guide, which provides a 42-day guide to surviving adulthood. JP’s most recent release, Welcoming the Future Church, inspires ministry leaders to attract and retain younger generations as they are the future of the church. Without them, the church has no future. JP's partner in ministry is Monica, his wife of fifteen years, and together they disciple their children Presley, Finley, and Weston.