Am I too busy? Why you need to slow down now
Many are asking themselves the question- Am I too busy? And if so, how do I know if it’s a problem and I need to slow down? All too often, people are living inescapable cycles of chaotic schedules with little to no margin for true soul rest. This type of lifestyle leads to burnout, breakdown, and broken families. So if you are feeling like your life is a little too busy or chaotic, don’t delay! Learn why it is vital that you slow down now to escape the busy hamster wheel in order to grow your roots deeper in your family, character, and Christ.
Here is a snapshot of what a day in our life used to look like several years ago. Can you relate?
6:15 am: Baby starts stirring. She goes from 0 to 100 in volume in 5 seconds flat. My heart sinks. There goes my quiet time. I guess I will try to read my Bible tonight.
6:18am: Change baby’s diaper.
6:25 am: I grab my first cup of coffee and look in the mirror. I wonder if I can get away with another day of dry shampoo? I touch up yesterday’s mascara, throw on my dress pants and blouse.
6:45am: Husband quickly kisses me and flies out the door- “see you tonight at dinner!” he half half-heartedly exclaims. I wonder to myself if our life will ever slow down enough to talk or connect in the mornings?
7:00am: Sadness captures my attention for a brief moment as I pack up the diaper bag and buckle the baby into her car seat. Lately, it feels like we go from one thing to another, and I haven’t had a chance to just snuggle my baby. Mommy guilt seems to be another “bag” I’m carrying with me as I head out the door.
7:30am: I drop the baby girl off at daycare. Then, head to the hospital for another long day of work. It’s work I went to college for, but it’s work my soul isn’t on fire for.
NOON- Lunchtime. Time to pump milk quickly for my baby while scarfing lunch down.
5:00pm: Pick baby up from daycare- I give her a million little kisses on the neck until she giggles uncontrollably. This is literally my favorite time of day (other than going to bed at night).
5:30pm: I rush home to make dinner before we host Bible study tonight. Hubby is pulling into the driveway. We are both exhausted, and not just from a lack of sleep.
5:45pm: We play the shallow-rooted catch-up game: “How was your day?” “Fine, how was yours?” “Same as yesterday.”
6:00pm: We are a little snippy with each other as we are frantically trying to fit dinner and house cleaning in before our friends arrive for Bible study.
9:00pm: Bible study friends are gone. The baby is finally asleep. We are left with little energy to connect with each other, so we turn on the TV to “rest.”
MIDNIGHT– As I fall asleep, I think about how I wish our life could be different- slower or more relaxed in some way. Deeper or more meaningful. I’m overwhelmed by the responsibilities of life, and I am frustrated that we don’t have the time to slow down.
We didn’t have the time to slow down.
Or so we thought.
What we didn’t realize at the time in our life and marriage is that we didn’t CREATE the time to slow down. We constantly blamed others, or our work for the fact that we didn’t have the time to connect, workout, or go on date nights.
We would say things like:
“I just couldn’t get a workout in this week.”
“I have to work late again tonight.”
“We really should help them out.”
The truth is that we all have the same 168 hours every single week. It is up to each of us to steward those 168 hours well, including investing those hours into intentional rest for our minds, bodies, and souls.
Too often, we see people living a vicious cycle of chaotic schedules that goes something like this:
- Wake up, check phone
- A chaotic and rushed morning
- Rush to school and work
- Work hard and/or extended hours all-day
- Dinner on the go
- Church commitment or other extracurricular/sport/kid’s activity
- Check email or do more work in the evening
- Watch TV or scroll social media
- Late bedtime
- Wake up and repeat.
This exhausting cycle used to be our life.
Did we desire to slow down?
Absolutely.
Did regular rest make it to the calendar?
Very rarely.
{I should add that we did make space each day to have a brief quiet time with God, but those few minutes were insufficient for deep rest and rejuvenation. Unfortunately, this is all too common for the average Christ follower.}
It’s odd, but busyness tends to be a “badge of honor” that most Americans wear proudly today. According to the Harvard Business Review,
“Today’s America, complaining about being busy and working all the time is so commonplace most of us do it without thinking. If someone asks, “How are you?” we no longer say “Fine” or “I’m well, thank you.” Instead, we often simply reply, “Busy!”
There are many reasons for this cultural lifestyle of busyness. For one, some feel they have more worth or success the more they are doing. Others are afraid they will become bored if they don’t have a full calendar. And other people, they are afraid of facing themselves or their problems if they were to just “stop.”
Most people feel they are victims of their time instead of victors – helpless at the hand of life’s demands, responsibilities, and others’ requests.
How you spend your time is a direct reflection of your priorities.
If you were to ask us several years ago what our priorities were, we would have told you that they were God first, family second, and our work & ministry third; however, if you looked at our calendar (or how we ACTUALLY spent our time), that was not the case.
Our go-go-go pace led us to burn out and marriage counseling (you can read our story here).
Author Peter Scazzero from the book The Emotionally Healthy Leader says it well:
“You can’t live at warp speed without warping your soul.”
It was clear. Our souls were being warped.
Learning to Live a Slower Life: Sabbath was our answer
Learning to slow down became the nonnegotiable to recover and live the deeply rooted life we desired. So we decided to look into God’s Word to understand what it meant to prioritize Him with our time.
Let’s take a moment to look at the 10 Commandments. The 4th commandment is to honor the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11). This was extremely important to God as He not only honored the Sabbath Himself, but He also reiterates it several times throughout the Old and the New Testament. He even goes as far to say to the Israelites in Exodus that those who do not honor the Sabbath will be put to death.
“You must keep the Sabbath day, for it is a holy day for you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community.
Exodus 31:14
I think God was pretty serious about the Sabbath.
We could sit here for hours or even days and go back and forth about whether we are still “under the law” or if the Old Testament law even applies to us.
But here’s the thing: Even Jesus practiced the Sabbath. And if we are to be followers of Jesus, then our lives ought to look similar to His life. Jesus not only honored the weekly Sabbath, but He also took many daily moments away for rest. Jesus lived His life from a place of REST...not busyness.
“Every action Jesus took was rooted in a place of deep rest and centeredness out of his relationship with God.” – Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Leader (pg 121)
So after much prayer, research, and consideration, Christian and I were left with these pondering questions about the Sabbath:
1. How are we going to get everything done in six days every week?
2. What day are we supposed to honor the Sabbath?
3. What do we do on the Sabbath? Lay around and do nothing?
We didn’t know everything about it, but we knew that the Sabbath was something we needed in our life.
As we trusted God and began prioritizing the Sabbath, we discovered that having 24 hours of complete rest for body, mind, and soul is vital to living a deeply rooted life.
When you are floating through life with a non-stop, limited-rest schedule, your roots remain shallow.
What kind of legacy is this creating?
What is this teaching our children?
A weekly rest day is imperative to deepen your roots so that you are unshakable and, in turn, live the life you were created for…the full and abundant life that Jesus came and died for. You will show up as your best self to everyone around you when the fruits of the Sabbath flow out of you.
Deeply rooted people intentionally set aside one day a week that is wholly devoted to rest and worship.
What Our Slower Life Looks Like Today
After learning to ditch our busy and chaotic life, we learned what it looks like to live a slower, more intentional lifestyle through the Sabbath. For us, honoring the Sabbath isn’t just about one day of the week. It has become a way of living. It’s a Sabbath lifestyle.
It hasn’t been easy, but it has been 100% worth it. You would think that having six kiddos, running multiple businesses, and ministry involvement would make it near impossible for us to have a Sabbath every week. But the Lord is so faithful to provide all that we need despite the fact that we only “work” 6 days a week.
Since implementing an intentional Sabbath in about 2016, our life went from chaos, go-go-go, and disorganized to peaceful, intentional, and rhythmic.
We learned how to better prioritize our life so that we could always make Sabbath happen every week. This required us to cut out extra activities that weren’t “the best” yes opportunities for us.
We also gained organizational skills in all areas of our life and home. We learned how to build intentional rhythms for our family so that our days run smoother, and so that we get done all that we need to before Sabbath. Our life is so much more organized since implementing the Sabbath!
A side benefit is that we now live a slower lifestyle that the other six days of the week too! We have found beauty in keeping margin and white space on our calendar so that our family is not “rushing” from one thing to the next. This means that we also have very intentional boundaries about what we say “yes” and “no” to. We aren’t the typical family that has our kids in a bunch of extracurriculars, sports, and clubs.
Overall, our life looks completely different today than it did before we honored the Sabbath regularly. Now that we have experienced the goodness and tasted the sweetness of the Sabbath, we could never go back. It is one of the greatest gifts the Lord has given to us, and I believe our large family is thriving because of it. No more burn-out or chaos for this clan!
At this point, you still may not be convinced that you need a full day or 24 hours of total rest and rejuvenation every week.
Here is a fun little checklist. If you check the box of at least one of these things, then you need a weekly 24-hour rest day:
- Bedtime is your favorite time of day.
- You don’t recall when you last took time for yourself
- You are “on edge” frequently
- You are struggling to find joy daily
- You live in a mental fog or feel constantly exhausted
- You would describe your life as “busy.”
- You are a human being.
And Scripture actually backs that last one up.
In Mark 2:27, Jesus said,
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
God designed the Sabbath (24 hours of rest) with you in mind. It’s His gift to you! Will you choose to accept this gift or refuse it?
When we refuse the Sabbath, we communicate to God that we do not trust in his provision.
Ultimately, it comes down to trust.
Can we trust that God can do more than we can?
Can we trust Him to provide when we are not working?
So who is your ultimate provider? God? Your job? Yourself?
When you can fully trust that God is your sole provider, taking a weekly Sabbath becomes not only easier but something you genuinely look forward to. For our family, it is our FAVORITE day of the week!
How to Slow Down with Sabbath
Now that we discussed the importance of the Sabbath, you may be wondering how to put this into action. We’ve got you covered! If you want to get started with your own Sabbath Rhythm, check out our article 3 Steps to Getting Started with Sabbath.
We also have a FREE RESOURCE that we created just for you and your family to make planning your perfect rest day even easier! Download your 101 Ideas for your Rest Day HERE.
Would you benefit from having more support in reorganizing your life so that you CAN honor the Sabbath? We offer opportunities to work with us via one-on-one coaching AND also through our signature course Home M.O. Together, we can support you in designing a life that you love…one that still allows you to do the work you are called to do while also prioritizing a weekly Sabbath.
We encourage you to discuss the following questions with your spouse or family, or if you are single- to journal about these!
Journal and Discussion questions:
- What are your current thoughts and feelings about taking a Sabbath or 24 hours rest day every week?
- How would I currently rate the speed of my life? What speed would I prefer?
- Who in your life and which activities do you find rejuvenating that you would love to make more time for?
