If We're Too "Busy" To Talk To People, We're Too Busy!

A little over a year ago, I met a lady at our local school district’s main office where I am employed, who we will call Janet. Janet was a very outgoing individual, and because she was, she and I would converse on a short term basis every morning when I delivered mail to the accounts payable department where she worked. We would talk about our families, world, national and local events, giving our views on what problems needed to be solved and how to solve the problems. Her solutions were common sense based.

Originally, Janet had been a substitute clerk, going to various schools within our school district when their full time clerk was absent. She was a very efficient individual and because she could get the job done, she was in high demand. Janet was so efficient at her accounts payable job, that the staff began to take notice. And when the opportunity presented itself, Janet interviewed for a permanent job opening in the accounts payable department and immediately got the job. Not long after she became a full time accounts payable clerk, she seemingly became overwhelmed at the volume of invoices that had to be properly and accurately processed.

And because of the sheer volume of work, she suddenly became increasingly distant, no longer wanting to talk at all about anything because she stated that she just did not have the time to converse. She was simply too “busy” with her job. What happened, you ask? Well, because of her job requirements and deadlines, her priorities changed and thus she became too “busy” to talk — not only to me but to anyone else.

The point of the above story is that as Christians, we have been employed by God to spread the word of the saving gospel of Christ, either verbally as in the case of Paul (Acts 17:22-23), or proclaiming the gospel message by the example of our godly lives and living (1 Thessalonians 1; 1 Peter 3:1-6). However, as in Janet’s case, there may be times in our Christian walk when we too become far too “busy” with the things of this world to talk to people with whom we daily interact with because of secular job requirements (or any other worldly distractions).

Beloved, if we’re too “busy” to converse with people about the saving gospel of Christ (or anything else for that matter), we’re too busy! And as such, we need to be willing to look at and adjust our priorities and attitude of heart (Matthew 6:19-21,33-34; Colossians 3:1-3; 1 Timothy 6:17-19).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets