Lazy in your Busyness

I was at a conference recently, listening to Karl Faase speak about leadership, specifically speaking to pastors who were parts of ministry teams at their churches - so there was a distinct leadership/working together feel to his focus.

At one point Karl spent time talking about laziness - about an inherent laziness that is in all, not just leaders, and one of the things leaders have to deal with is motivating people to actually buy in to whatever ministry or commitment it is they are seeking help with.  However, it is not a laziness that sees people doing nothing and being completely pathetic and lethargic.  In fact the majority of our laziness comes from somewhere else entirely;

"A good example of laziness is not just doing nothing, but being absolutely flat out doing useless things"  - Karl Faase

When we honestly take stock of our lives I think we'll realise that those things we spend a lot of time doing are really quite useless.  The endless scrolling of Facebook walls, finding the funniest meme of the day, viewing that next funny cat video... and then the next one... or just expectantly being consumed by waiting for that next notification on your phone.  All that may add up to us actually appearing very busy, but in fact it is the height of laziness.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.  - Ephesians 4:28 

Do we ever think about our laziness as being stealing?  Stealing time and profit from our employer, stealing time and relationship from our families, friends, and most importantly, God? And that our business in useless things is the key contribution to our thieving?

Part of this is also attributed to the fact that we are never intentionally quiet and engaging with God.  In our laziness to connect with God we actually make ourselves so busy so that we don't "have time" to have a quiet time, or prayer time, or even to read our Bibles. That is stealing from God!

It made me ask the question, where do I do nothing in quiet except commune and interact with God?  In preparation for sermons, meetings with leaders, guiding people spiritually I spend lots of time interacting with God - and that is not a useless thing - but then when it is my own time I probably want to 'switch off' and so I turn to my phone, my computer or my TV... and so my intentionality to personally spend time with God is probably lacking. And so I want to stop stealing.

Do you want to be a thief?

If not then you need to think through this as well.