After my last blog on wholesome living, a reader (perhaps a little guiltily) made the following comment: "I can only conclude that being too busy is not wholesome living..." I chewed on that statement for the next 24 hours and then decided to write a second blog on wholesome living. I believe that our lives can certainly become unwholesome if we are too busy. But I also believe that just because we have a busy life does not inherently mean that it is unwholesome. Each of of us will have to evaluate their own life, daily schedule, and the activities that they are involved with, and then decide whether or not their life is wholesome.
I think we can conclude after reading the first four books of the New Testament that Jesus Himself was a busy man when He was on earth. He healed the sick, taught His disciples privately, preached to crowds of people, had one-on-one conversations with people who were searching, answered questions from the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who were trying to trap Him by His words, healed many sick people, drove out demons, raised people from the dead, and performed various other miracles. He did all of those things for one purpose: to show people that He was the promised Messiah, and to point people to the work that He was going to do for them on the cross. Yet, in the midst of all His busy-ness He still manged to carve out time to be alone and pray. Mark 1:35 says, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed." That just blows my mind away. If Jesus -- the Son of God -- needed to have that concentrated time alone with His Father, how much more do I need it?! If I don't get plenty of time to talk with my Father in Heaven and to read His life-giving Word, I am pretty sure that I will lose my energy and my focus in life and I will lose my ability to think (and act) positively... In short, I will lose the wholesomeness that is in my life.
In an article entitled, "Is Jesus missing from your busy life?", Allison Moore says, "The most abundant life is quite simple. The abundant life is more of Jesus" (https://newspring.cc/articles/is-jesus-whats-missing-from-your-life). She lists eight ways that would help us get "more of Jesus": be still, pray, listen, read the Bible, love others well, serve someone else, praise Jesus often, and give back. If our schedules are so filled with work, responsibilities, and "activities" or "programs" (whether of a religious nature or not) that we do not have time for those very important activities that Allison mentions, I think our lives may indeed be in danger of being unwholesome. However, if we are very busy, yet still have that "time alone" like Jesus did to maintain proper focus in life, and we are glorifying God and serving our neighbors by what we are doing (and not just driven by a desire to get rich or become famous) then that is also a wholesome life.
I don't know about you, but I would like to have a more wholesome and abundant life. On the outside, my life may end up looking very different from yours because we are in different situations, have different families, have different talents, and may also have different callings from God. But if we both have a wholesome life, then our lives will be similar in that they will both be rooted in Christ."So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith, as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness" (Col.2:6+7). May His Word and the Holy Spirit guide each one of us to know more and more how He wants us to live out that wholesome and abundant life. And may He be glorified through it all!
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