Busyness (Reflections from a Fossil)
This is a piece about busyness and how it has been, for me, one of the largest barriers to my efforts in loving God and loving others. This is part reflection, part confession, and small part warning, especially for those of you who find yourself perpetually busy. Don’t read this too prescriptively because in all honesty, this is a relatively new revelation for me and something that I’m still trying to figure out for myself (amid a sea of other idols and battles).
I should also note that there isn’t too much of a positive resolution to this post. Though I desperately wish that He had revealed this to me earlier, God decided that now would be the right time to reveal this failure of my heart and mind to me, in a time and place where the majority of people that I wanted to serve and love and labour after are no longer part of my daily life. So this revelation has yielded bittersweet fruit — thankfulness to see the issue and so begin to address it; but also much regret and sorrow of how much I missed.
But God is good; always has been, and always will be. Even the timing of this revelation is part of His good and perfect plan. No matter how much I wish I had known this 6–7 years ago will change that fact. So with all that stated, here’s a bit about me and my last seven years.
I’m good! I’ve just been so busy lately…
It’s almost midnight and I’m completely exhausted. I’m walking home from QNC after another one of our seemingly never-ending committee meetings. It’s the start of a new term so naturally, we’re in the flurry of trying to get everything organized. And when I say everything, I really mean that.
What are SGs? What are DGs? What’s happening with retreat? Have we confirmed our vision yet? Do we have enough leaders for everything? I can’t even remember what we talked about anymore. It’s all a blur in my head. I just want to not need to think about anything.
I get a buzz on my phone. Fumbling around I see a stack of calendar notifications one after another. There are too many to see on the home screen so I open up the calendar app and it’s like looking into a kaleidoscope — colours everywhere. See everything gets its own colour. Orange is for school; red is for work; blue is for ministry; green is for personal; different colours for other things.
My eyes dart across the screen, scanning tomorrow’s schedule. It’s jam-packed from 8AM until 11PM. A morning lecture followed by some group project meetings, some more classes, some chores at home, and the day wrapping up with a Frosh Cell leadership meeting.
Is that really tomorrow? I take a look at the rest of the week.
Why is every single night blue?! Frosh Cell meeting is tomorrow and then a Jesus Week meeting the next day; the actual Frosh Cell is on Thursday; CCF TFN is on Friday; a retreat meeting on Saturday; and an SG leader training on Sunday? My goodness. How is it only Monday? I already feel completely tapped out.
I trudge my way home past E5 and E6 and slowly up the stairs of WCRI Carver 2, all the while trying to create a mental list of the things I need to prepare for these meetings. The door is unlocked as usual and I slump my way in.
“Hey Bryan, how are you?” one of my roommates asks, perking his head over the monitor and peeling one side of his headphones off.
“Bryan?” I realize he’s staring at me now, headphones completely off. “How are you? Hello?” I slump into the chair across from him. “Sorry, I’m good,” trying to force a smile. “I’m just so tired. And busy.”
Some Context
This was somewhat emblematic of my time at Waterloo. Not just at home, but with almost everyone that I talked to, my answer was always the same. God was moving! Big things are happening! It’s exciting seeing God move. But goodness, was I tired. Every day felt like grinding through more meetings and prep work.
I came into Waterloo with the expectation that I would be serving and doing. It feels weird (and even to this day) not to be serving. Free time? That’s time that I could be serving the Lord! (Quick note, that’s a super toxic way to be thinking). It was what was normative for me.
Throughout high school, I was actively involved with Teens Conference every year, serving every service at my church, and a part of some multi-school joint fellowship stuff. I was always doing something.
This naturally continued into Waterloo. It didn’t feel right to not be doing stuff so I just kept on going. I started serving in Frosh Cell in 1B and from there I never stopped. In 2A I was leading SWORD (Studying the Word on Radical Discipleship) and by 2B I was on committee leading an overhaul of our entire leadership structure. I’ve led DGs and SGs; served on or oversaw musical worship, frosh cell, internal, and outreach. I’ve organized retreats, grad dinners, elections, spring picnics, joint fellowships, Jesus Week, LIFT, you name it. Besides women’s ministry (for the obvious reason), I think I’ve served in every single CCF ministry available in my time.
Wait this doesn’t sound too bad?
It started with a single ministry. And then soon with overseeing multiple ministries and being on committee, there was this sense of “scope creep.” I was adding more and more to my ministry portfolio and nothing seemed wrong with it. This was my way of loving God, being a part of His kingdom, and loving His people.
I was serving my God and dedicating more and more of my time and efforts to serving Him and the people of CCF. I poured hours into thinking about ministry strategy and figuring out how to execute and achieve our ministry goals. My brain would, on a seeming auto-pilot, always be thinking about what to be doing or what to be teaching at CCF. I wanted people to know and see the God of the scriptures — I was in many ways desperate for that and so I laboured hard in all these areas for that goal.
I would spend large parts of my vacation time (in between terms) writing bible studies for the coming term. Reading, rereading, taking notes, writing, and editing various CCF materials. I started switching up my personal devotions; from my own reading plans to whatever I was preparing for CCF so that I could extract as much from the text in preparation for teaching it. I would reread the same three or four passages for months on end trying to marinate in the text to not miss anything.
So what was the result of all that serving? Did it lead to some sort of explosive spiritual growth or some very present and tangible expressions of love for the people around me and in my life?
Loving God?
In short, no.
Perhaps you caught it; a bit of a red flag emoji peeping into your mind as you read those last couple of paragraphs.
“I started switching up my personal devotions; from my own reading plans to whatever I was preparing for CCF”
Red flag. Why? I was starting to switch out my own time with God, time that was supposed to be for me to simply sit with and enjoy God for myself, with time that was geared for learning for the purpose of teaching others. My focus shifted away from my need for God, to a need to prepare a bible study or a program.
My times of personal growth and devotion became subsumed by the need to prepare something to share and teach the fellowship. Instead of asking God to reveal things from the scriptures to teach me, rebuke me, and build me up, I came to God asking for things to teach, things to share, and things to build others up.
Now, of course, God has used these times to build me up and to show me things about Himself, but my primary identity and role is not as chairperson or SG leader or ministry overseer, but rather, as a child of God.
I’ve been adopted not primarily so that I could do things for the kingdom, but primarily so that I can love God. My sins were forgiven not just so that I could lead bible study, but primarily, to remove the rift between me and God so that I can delight in Him forever.
Even without my “hindsight is 20–20” goggles on, I knew then that my time with God was faltering. I was rarely spending time with God for myself. In all honesty, aside from ministry, my prayer and spiritual life were more aligned with my failed romantic endeavours than anything else! (Come to God when rejected; forget about time with God when things got “better”)
With each new ministry being added to my plate, I replaced ever-increasing amounts of my own time with God for time studying, prepping, or leading. Instead of learning things about God for myself and delighting in Him alone, I would read and learn primarily to have something to teach others. In my “busyness” I replaced the time that I desperately needed to have with God alone and replaced it with more doing.
I no longer made time to simply sit with my God. I became Martha (cf. Luke 10:38–42).
Loving Others?
Unsurprisingly… no.
Maybe you also caught this one. As my ministry portfolio grew, it did not come with a corresponding increase in time spent with others outside of formal ministry commitments (e.g. meetings or the actual event). While you can definitely get to know people through those, those are almost always incidental results.
I spent increasing amounts of time by myself studying the bible or reading commentaries. Even when I was in ministry events, I was rarely deeply present with the people that were there.
During Friday nights, I would always be timekeeping or running through my notes one last time and would never be a part of the icebreakers or talking to people at the beginning of each night. At small group bible studies, instead of actually joining the group within my SG for discussions, I would just sit in the front and lead the discussions.
I was also often so emotionally or mentally detached from my actual SG or DG that, in all honesty, I often couldn’t remember the people in my SGs or DGs. I used to make the excuse that I’ve led more than 12 SGs or DGs but the reality is that my mind was rarely ever there. I was both too tired and too “focused” on running the program instead of the people who were actually attending the events.
Sad fact, so many people have come up to me and said “hey you were my SG leader!” and my only response to them would be a desperate blank stare as I hoped my smooth brain would be able to remember their names.
The reality was that I rarely ever spoke to my DG or SG members outside of our events themselves. I never seemed to be able to make the time to meet with them or the other leaders that were supposed to be under my care — never mind the rest of the members of the CCF!
A couple of months ago, one of my friends told me about all the times that she had hung out with my roommates in my apartment and how many significant life events had been shared in my living room. I was baffled. A little dumbstruck even. I had absolutely no memory of any of those times. I could not recall a single time seeing her in my house. Seeing the confusion on my face she added, “you were always doing something or going somewhere. Always doing something and never present.”
That was the twist of the knife. The sudden realization that in my busyness, in my attempts to “serve” the people of this fellowship, I had missed out on so much. In the times that the people I was trying to serve were struggling, I wasn’t around. In their times of jubilation, I also wasn’t around.
I missed so much.
Some Concluding Thoughts
For both God and the people in my life, instead of sitting and being present with them, I exchanged that time for preparing bible studies and thinking about ministry strategy. Being so “busy” with so many things made my life into a constant hurry to finish each task and move on to the next. I was so “busy” that I had to “squeeze” people into my calendar. What a sad way to live life.
Many people tried to warn me and I would deflect. But they were right. So I hope if you find yourself in a similar state, that you’d also take some time to reflect and to start carving out protected time for you to sit and be with God and to be with others. And, perhaps most importantly, try to find out why you are so busy.
This feels like a bit of a cliffhanger of an ending, but it’s definitely deserving of its own blog post in the future (Lord willing). Why was I so busy? In part because it was normative for me, but in large part because I felt the need to earn people’s approval and affection. I’m not particularly funny or smart; by no means athletic or strong; a solid “yikes” in terms of visual appearance; and so I felt the only way I could earn people’s affection and approval was through a display of theology and leadership.
That’s definitely a different topic, but look at your calendar. How do you spend your time? Does it help you to reach your main goals: loving God; loving others; and yes, loving yourself even.
I hope that busyness won’t be an enemy to your goals.
As I wrap up, I want to admit something. Many of you might not know me, but as I was reading through the other reflection posts over the last month or so, I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. Every single one of those posts were written by people who started and ended their time at UW while I was a student. My goodness, I’m still in school right now! I started in September 2014, when some of you were still in elementary school, and somehow I’m still here. I’ve seen at least four generations of students enter and graduate from UW. Take that however you want, I’ve just been around for a long time.
Grace and peace.
If you want to chat, feel free to shoot me an email at bryan.tw.wong@gmail.com. I’ve gone off social media :)
