The Good Kind of Busy

I wonder if life always seemed this busy to people. There seems to always be something there to take our focus off of what is in front of us. There are even distractions within distractions. Some friends and I were talking just the other day about the great annoyance of Mafia Wars and Farmville on Facebook. Even within a social network which does little more than distract, there are meaningless distractions. Would that I could write with a straight face that I am above Facebook and similar distractions but, alas.

I am also not of the opinion that things that distract are inherently evil. Even as I write this, I am watching music on the television and staying up to date on my twitter friends. My iphone is sitting next to me, ready to sound a Radiohead ringtone that I spent otherwise valuable time editing down into a handy 30 second clip and I am liable to take a break and search for a decent football game on cable- a pursuit which I have tried a few times already in the past couple of hours. Add on top of all this that I have plenty of things I 'need to do', from Greek and Hebrew reading to preparations for our worship tomorrow night at Tapestry. Distractions are all around you and I.

You see a lot of distractions waiting tables. The one that always catches my eye looks all too typical. A man and his woman will be sitting down across from each other, enjoying a night of relaxation away from their normal routine. At least one of the two will be holding a cell phone and text messaging, Facebooking, emailing, or whatever else we do on cell phones. Here they are with the man or woman they love and they pay more attention to a baseball score than the person in front of them.

Would that I could write with a straight face that I am above similar distractions but, alas. I do the same thing at work. It is much easier for me to check baseball scores, twitter, Facebook, email, etc. than to have a real conversation with the people who are around me. God has made these people and placed me alongside them and how often I neglect these relationships because I am so willingly distracted.

I confess that I often feel more guilty when I have been diverted from the things I need to do than when I have disregarded the people God has placed around me. I all too easily value the stuff around me over the people around me. If I really believed that my coworkers, guests, bosses, family members, and friends were image-bearers of God like I say I do, I would be much more intentional in looking them in the eye and having a real conversation. Like so many things, though, I cannot do this on my own. Do you want to know something else? You can't either. We all need God's Spirit to move us to value one another. If we are busy, lets be busy with building God's kingdom one relationship at a time. To do God's work, we desperately need God's help.