Besides the holidays – the end of the school year seems to bring on incredible busyness and stress: state assessments, report cards, behavior challenges, proms, award ceremonies, graduations, financial burdens, illness & injuries, ball games, deadlines, paperwork, sales quotas, etc., etc., etc!  In our crazy, busy lifestyles – we all seem to have forgotten that one of the original Ten Commandments was to take a Sabbath Day (a day of rest) at least once a week.   I wanted to share a few quotes from a book I would strongly recommend to anyone who feels like they are running at full speed on a hamster wheel. It is called Addicted to Busy by Brady Boyd, and can be found at:

https://amzn.to/2HYH7sb

See if any of these quotes resonate with you:

• “If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath – our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us.”  (pg. 33)
• “Ultimately, every problem I see in every person I know is a problem of moving too fast for too long in too many aspects of life.”  (pg. 44)
• “God is not merely a peaceful person; God, in fact, is peace.  When we sit in God’s presence, we’re sitting in the presence of peace.” (pg. 56)
• “I have a theory on this, which is that busyness is our means to impress.  If I’m busy, then I’m important, and if I’m important, then you’ll be impressed.  Right?”  (pg. 70)
• “I’ve been to Jerusalem on several occasions, and each time I’m there over a Sabbath, I’m struck by how seriously the Jews take their day of rest.  In Jerusalem, you can’t get anything done on the Sabbath.  Nothing.  The whole town essentially shuts down. . . . I guarantee all Jewish shopkeepers are closed for the day.  They’re at home or at a synagogue with their families, enjoying a Sabbath meal, enjoying the pleasure of one another’s company, and enjoying the inner strength that comes when we rest.” (pg. 83-84)
• “‘Jesus obeyed a deeper rhythm,'” . . . . Absolutely, he does just that:  engage, engage, engage, withdraw . . . . engage, engage, engage, withdraw . . . . It’s how we’re invited to live too.”  (pg. 105)
• “Something always interrupts our rest, because real rest is always opposed.”  (pg. 164)

And in conclusion – my favorite part:

• ” . . . . we think if we don’t get every room vacuumed, every bookshelf dusted, every meal made by hand, every child’s homework folder initialed, every birthday party attended, every plant watered, every inch of grass mowed, every load of laundry folded, every lacrosse practice made, every book read, every app mastered, every televised sporting event watched, every everything done, we will somehow be lesser human beings. I myself had lived according to that philosophy for far too many years.  I’m here to tell you it’s bunk.  The whole philosophy is bunk.  The universe will keep on spinning, and you will keep on being a great person, even if a few things are left undone.
• “A New Zealand Prayer Book has a fantastic prayer in it called “Night Prayer,” and one of the stanzas reads,

“It is night after a long day.

What has been done has been done;

what has not been done has not been done;

let it be.”    (pg. 89)

Great advice “let it be.”  Or, as the psalmist once wrote:

“Be still and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10)

Blessings,

Dave

https://www.amazon.com/author/davidrische

P.S. If you’re in the book buying spirit – another quick read that can help you develop inner peace and create more margin is my book Five Prayers That Can Change History found at https://amzn.to/2jxlioV