Quality

When did busyness become the gold star that it now is today? The mantra of today’s socio-economic world seems to be “If you aren’t busy, you’re dead.” Yet why is that so?
How “busy” we are has become the sole criterion by which we assess the quality of our lives. But I believe that if we are honest with ourselves, the majority of us desire a time of quality rather than a quantity of time. Yet we have substituted the quality of our time for its quantity. We never have enough time. We stay up late and wake up early that we might have more time. When stress accumulates because we are so busy we need more time to be busy rather than a good time of rest. The quality of our time is ultimately judged by its quantity. The day is deemed good in quality according to the number of errands done, projects finished, people served, books read, miles ran. Time is given quality by the quantity of things which it allows us to do.

If ever there was a man who lived a quality life of quantity, it was Solomon. Solomon oversaw the nation of Israel at its peak of prosperity. Some of Solomon’s accomplishments include building the temple, housing 40,000 stalls of horses, speaking 3,000 proverbs, writing 1,000 songs, marrying 700 women, planting national forests. A life of quantity that no man has yet to repeat, however Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 4:6 – “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.”

At the end of his life Solomon looks back and tells us to live two handedly. Live in one hand working hard, getting the most quantity out of your time. Be as the ant in Proverbs 6 who prepares her bread in the summer. But hold in the other hand times of quietness, times of rest for your soul, times that aren’t weighed in quality by their quantity. Solomon goes on in chapter 4 verse 18-20 to say: “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil–this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.”

Through the person and work of Jesus Christ we are reconciled to God and given fullness of joy in right relationship with Him that we might walk in joy recognizing such things as gifts from a loving father.

As the recent weather suggests, summer appears to have arrived, may we be like the ant that stores up bread, works hard, does all things with our might according to the will of God and may we enjoy the toils of life given to us by God. May we breathe deeply in those times of rest and quietness. Instead of driving fast while talking on the Bluetooth, telling the kids to be quiet, rolling the windows up so you can hear and eating your fast food that shortens your life: Drive slowly, roll the windows down, turn the music up loud, tell the kids to sing at the top of their lungs, sit down and take more than five minutes to eat food that will nourish instead of kill you because as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, these things are gifts from God. Augustine spoke well in saying “If these be the beauties afforded to sinful man, how much more for those who love Him?”

Skylar