Busy, Busy, Dreadfully Busy...

In the VeggieTales Classic “Are you my Neighbor?” they recount the story of the Good Samaritan. With Larry the Cucumber portraying our beat-up and bullied traveler with his head stuck in a hole, many likely vegetables/characters come by but offer him no help. Instead they break out in this little number:

“I’m busy, busy dreadfully busy.
You’ve no idea what I have to do.
Busy, busy shockingly busy.
Much, much too busy for you....
Cause we’re busy, busy, frightfully busy.
More than a bumblebee, more than an ant.
Busy, busy, horribly busy.
We’d love to help, but we can’t!”

Okay, so maybe I’ve not been given the opportunity to help my neighbor on the side of the road who just happens to have his head stuck in a hole, but part of my insides have been screaming (for the better part of the last two weeks) “I’m busy, busy, dreadfully busy...” with any number of excuses as to what and to why and to how.

I’ve done my best to make time for people and situations and things. I’ve packed far more into my busy schedule than I previously thought possible. Working a typical 14 hour day seemed like a piece of cake after I managed to pack another five or six hours of life in and around it while denying my need for the little things, like sleep.

Busy. Too busy. But it get’s done, it always gets done. So says my longstanding mantra.

And in the end there is only one I’ve really been too busy for...

Jesus.

“You get it, right, Jesus? I’ve been busy. Terribly busy. Shockingly busy. Horribly busy. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you. It’s not that our relationship isn’t important to me. It’s just that... I’m busy. Frightfully busy. Dreadfully busy. Apparently much too busy for you...”

That’s a problem.

Quality time rates the highest on my love language profile. I feel most loved when I receive quality time and quality time is a huge part of the way I give love (acts of service rating just a little bit higher in the ‘give’ department, but the two play closely together.) This means that I interpret love through the eyes of time...at least on some level.

I see people investing the most time into the ones they hold the dearest and the closest. When you love someone, there is no “too busy”. You make the time. Giving time means the world to me. And giving the time you don’t have? In my life, that is the highest form of affection.

So what does it say if I haven’t given Jesus any time as of recently? Am I just not capable of giving because of my dreadfully busy schedule? Or does it really reflect back on to how much I love?

A couple weeks ago I stayed up late talking to my little sister on the phone. She needed me. I needed sleep. Terribly. But I love her. And love, for me, comes in the outsourcing of time. My time. She came before sleep...I didn't hesitate.

So what are my actions, decisions really communicating? “Jesus, I’m busy, frightfully busy...but I’ve managed to make time for everyone and everything but you...”?

Not okay.

I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist or even a relationship guru to know that healthy relationships require time.

I’m the spouse that comes home late – long after dinner’s become cold – shouting “what more do you want? I’m trying to provide for you, to serve You. What more do You want?”

And you can almost hear the whispered “You. The only thing I’ve ever truly wanted in this relationship is you. All of you. Anika, I want you.”

Oh to be as the psalmist who knew one day in the courts of the Almighty was better than a thousand anywhere else. There is one with his priorities straight. Time is relative when Jesus comes first. Everything else must follow behind.