Busyness and Heaviness
When was the last time you had this exact conversation:
“Hey, how are you doing?”
“I’m really busy, how are you doing?”
“I’m really busy too.”
Did you have that conversation today? Maybe on Sunday when you were greeting people at church? My guess is that you have had that conversation at least once lately. Being busy seems to have become the normal state of things, especially in pastoral life. In his classic book “The Contemplative Pastor” Eugene Peterson says busyness plagues pastors because we are vain (we use busyness to show we are important and significant) or because we are lazy (we let others decide our schedule for us instead of doing the necessary work of planning a pastoral life around prayer, reading, silence and solitude).
Sometimes in these conversations I say I am experiencing busyness when what I am actually feeling is heaviness. We all know the heaviness of life and ministry. You hear the story of brokenness from someone you are close to and there isn’t an easy path to wholeness. You have to make a difficult decision that you are not sure about the right path forward but it is your decision to make. Whatever you decide will disappoint or anger someone. You hear criticisms about how you are leading or preaching or living and you feel hurt and also inadequate for the task you have been called to. A situation goes sideways with one of your kids. Life and ministry can feel heavy.
Heaviness can lead to busyness. When I feel heaviness from the weight of ministry and life responsibilities it can be harder to get tasks done. It becomes difficult to land on the topic for a sermon (or an article). My mind can spend a lot of time running scenarios around the situations leading to the heaviness that pushes necessary tasks off to a later time. Eventually those tasks need to get done, and when I come to them later there will be less time to accomplish them. That leads to an experience of busyness. Some people instead create tasks that are unnecessary in order to feel busy so they won’t have to deal with the heaviness. The root issue, though, is not that I am too busy but that I am having a hard time coping with the heaviness.
There are solutions to busyness. The best one is to learn to say “No” to non-essential things that will fill your time but not actually lead to any progress. You can learn to schedule your life better, empower people to take on some of your responsibilities, and learn to set boundaries. The solutions to busyness are not easy but at least they are clear.
What never works is when one tries to solve the heaviness problem with solutions aimed to solve busyness. In my work coaching and walking with church planters I see this all the time. Church planters are often very busy with lots of tasks. They are also extremely capable of getting a lot of tasks done. When one hits a point where they are extremely overwhelmed, they usually will say that they are too busy. Sometimes that is the case. Often, though, it only takes a little bit of digging under the surface to realize that busyness isn’t the real problem: heaviness is. We could come up with all the solutions that would get all the tasks done. We could hire more staff and ramp up more volunteers and it still wouldn’t help. We could take a vacation that gets us out of the grind for a week, but the heaviness remains. Busyness solutions don’t help heaviness problems.
What are some potential heaviness solutions? I can tell you what won’t work: doom scrolling on my phone does not help the feeling of heaviness. Running my anxious mind in circles for hours at a time doesn’t help either. Binge-watching television might pause the feeling for 22 minutes at a time but the feeling comes back in full force and usually stronger when the show ends and all is quiet. Here are a few things that I am working on and growing in that seem to help me with the heaviness.
Try and be honest about what you are feeling. First, be honest with yourself. Are you feeling busy or are you feeling heavy? How do you know the difference in yourself? Then, when people you trust ask how you are doing, take the risk and say you are feeling heavy instead of busy. Maybe through your honesty and transparency Galatians 6:2 will be lived out: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Heaviness is lightened when we open up and talk about what is weighing us down with people who care for us.
Humbly approach God with your feelings, that God might restore your spirit. I know saying “pray about it” is overly simplistic. What I am talking about is continually developing the lifelong discipline of learning how to lean on the Lord in times of trouble, to trust more deeply the Lord’s intentions towards us and to live out 1 Peter 5:6-7 in a more and more genuine way: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Sabbath regularly. I have been lacking in my experience of this discipline in my life lately (for our family summer is harder to Sabbath) but in past seasons of heaviness this has been a lifeline. Sabbath has reminded me that God keeps working even when I stop working. Forcing myself to stop trying to fix the problem or make the decision or figure out the way forward for a day reminds me that most of the things that are weighing me down I cannot fix and are usually not as life-threatening as they seem in the moment. Sabbath in our house helps me value the simple pleasures of life: a really great Saturday breakfast of French toast, eggs, bacon and fruit with a great cup of coffee while bluegrass Saturday morning is playing on Jazz 88 FM, all while sitting with my wife and kids for a dedicated morning with no screens. Sometimes it goes great, sometimes it doesn’t, but this simple rhythm of Sabbath Saturday mornings in our house helps me to be present and experience the simple gifts of Lord in my life.
How are you dealing with the heaviness of life and ministry these days? I want to close this article with Jesus’ words in Matthew 11 that are a promise to those of you who are feeling heavy. May you experience the depth of this invitation Jesus has for you: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Kyle Magstadt
Associate Superintendent for
Church Multiplication