Are You Too Busy? Part 2

People seem to be busier and busier than ever, yet we have all these modern inventions to supposedly "ease" our time, give us more opportunity for relaxation.  With the new smartphones, everything is at your finger tips.  They should make life so much simpler.  They do, to a point, but they've also added a new dimension of distraction that causes people to rudely ignore those around them, even those they love the most.  The same could be said about computers.  (Of course, half of my time on the computer seems to be spent trying to figure out how to get it to do what I want it to do.)

I see so many frazzled young mothers who are trying to do everything.  Their lives are so busy that they can't even see straight.  They can't see how desperate their children are for quality attention from their parents, and how they long for some time to just act like children.  They're off every evening to some sports practice, or musical lesson, or Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts or one of the countless activities available for kids to make them "well-rounded".   When my kids were young, I learned to limit their activities (after many years of the craziness) and discovered they were much happier to have time at home to be a family.

My friends from People To People Ministry (check out their website at www.peopletopeopleministry.org ) made the quote "Don't mistake activity for achievement. Busyness does not equal productiveness."  That is true in our children's lives, too.  They often get burned out early from too much of an activity that they may have excelled in when the time was right later on.

I want to share with you a powerful article I discovered many years ago.  This was written even BEFORE cell phones and computers, so I would say that Satan is hitting us even harder with all our technical gadgets.

Satan's Convention

Unknown Author
This story was created to demonstrate how Christians can be distracted
and kept from laying hold on Jesus and experiencing him in his fullness.

Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his evil angels, he said, "We can't keep the Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can't even keep them from forming an intimate, abiding relationship experience in Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken".

"So let them go to their churches; let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can't gain that relationship with Jesus Christ. This is what I want you to do, angels. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!"

"How shall we do this?" shouted his angels.

"Keep them busy in the non- essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles".

"Keep them from spending time with their children. As their family fragments, soon, their home will offer no escape from the pressures of work! Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, VCR, and CD's going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."

"Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs,sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes. Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines so the husbands will believe that external beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives. Ha! That will fragment those families quickly!"

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted and unprepared for the coming week. Don't let them go out in nature to reflect on God's wonders.  Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead. Keep them busy, busy, busy! And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions."

It was quite a convention. The evil angels went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get more busy and more rushed, going here and there.

What do you think?  Has the devil been successful?
Remember, busy = Being Under Satan's Yolk