Room to Love

If my life had a soundtrack, it would be "Flight of the Bumblebees."  Between a demanding job, two small kids, church responsibilities, other civic engagements, personal administrative to-do's, tending to friendships and family relationships, and taking care of my body, mind, soul, and spirit, I find myself constantly flitting from one thing to the next.  People call me a masterful multi-tasker, but I'm actually awful at doing more than one thing at a time.  Rather, I rely on my scheduling prowess to jam multiple individual things into my waking hours, and then spend those waking hours frantically getting through one thing and moving on to the next.

Alas, all too often I have been too busy for something or someone that comes along that should otherwise trump my carefully laid plans.  I may be seeking to honor God by packing my days with productive and edifying things, but not if I have disqualified myself from being available to Him to be deployed to a place or person of interest.

Busyness can be seen as a sign of importance: how many times have we heard or said, with puffed out chest and dismissive tone, "Sorry, I can't make that; I'm too busy."  But God doesn't need us to be busy; he desires that we are available.  It doesn't matter that I am good at scheduling and not so good at loving; God doesn't need us to be "good at" it, just to be willing to be used by Him to touch someone or do something.

Consider the famous Bible story of the Good Samaritan.  The priest and the religious leader walk past the wounded assault victim, while the Samaritan not only stops and helps, but goes out of his way to make sure the victim is taken care of and pledges to pay even more in hotel charges should it be needed.  The lesson of the story is about being a good neighbor, which is elevated as one of the two major to-do's (loving God being the other), in case we missed the significance of the lesson.

How many Good Samaritan opportunities have I foregone because of my busyness?  Countless lost opportunities to participate in and be a vessel of the love of God.  Would that I give God room to love.