Tuesday Read: October 13 - When Busyness Replaces Presence

You're thirteen days into October. For many, these thirteen days have been a blur of activity - work deadlines, family obligations, social commitments, errands, appointments, and endless small tasks that fill every available moment. You haven't stopped moving. You've been productive, accomplished things, checked items off lists. But have you been present?

There's difference between busyness and productivity, between activity and presence. Busyness fills time. Productivity accomplishes goals. Presence engages with what's actually happening right now instead of mentally living in what's next. You can be busy without being productive. You can be productive without being present.

Jesus encountered this with Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42). When Jesus visited their home, Martha rushed around preparing food, arranging accommodations, ensuring everything was perfect. Mary sat at Jesus' feet listening to him teach. Martha grew resentful that Mary wasn't helping and complained to Jesus: "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

Jesus' response surprises: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed - or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." He didn't praise Martha's service or tell Mary to help. He affirmed Mary's choice to be present with him over Martha's choice to be busy for him.

This doesn't mean service doesn't matter. Someone had to prepare food. Martha's work was necessary. But her busyness had displaced presence. She was so focused on doing things for Jesus that she missed being with Jesus. Her activity became substitute for intimacy. She was serving someone she wasn't actually encountering.

The contemporary version of this happens constantly. You pray while thinking about your to-do list. You attend worship while mentally planning your week. You have conversations while checking your phone. You eat meals while scrolling social media. You're physically present but mentally elsewhere, always preparing for what's next instead of engaging with what is.

This pattern is exhausting and ultimately empty. Busyness produces the illusion of significance - look how much I'm doing, how many responsibilities I'm managing, how productive I am. But activity doesn't equal meaning. You can accomplish everything on your list and still miss the one thing that matters: presence with God and others.

The Psalms repeatedly call for stillness. "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). "My soul finds rest in God alone" (Psalm 62:1). "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength" (Isaiah 30:15). Stillness isn't laziness or wasted time - it's necessary foundation for knowing God. But stillness requires stopping the constant activity that fills every moment.

When was the last time you were genuinely still? Not sleeping, not just sitting down while thinking about tasks, but actually still - quiet mind, quiet body, present to the moment? For many people, the answer is "never" or "I can't remember." We've forgotten how to be still because we've accepted busyness as normal and stillness as luxury we can't afford.

But you can't afford not to be still. Without stillness, you lose perspective. Everything feels equally urgent. You can't distinguish between what matters and what doesn't because you never stop long enough to evaluate. You just keep moving from task to task, day to day, month to month, until years pass and you realize you've been busy but not present, productive but not purposeful.

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and spiritual writer, observed: "People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall." Busyness can propel you efficiently toward goals that don't actually matter. But you only discover which wall your ladder is leaning against when you stop climbing long enough to look around.

October 13 is just another day in a busy month. You have things to do, places to be, people to see, tasks to complete. But what if you stopped? What if you carved out time today - even just fifteen minutes - to be genuinely still? No phone, no list, no planning, no productive activity. Just stillness. What might you notice that constant busyness has obscured?

You might notice anxiety you've been outrunning. You might recognize relationships you've been neglecting. You might realize the pace you're maintaining isn't sustainable. You might hear God speaking truths you've been too busy to notice. Stillness doesn't create these realities - it reveals what busyness has hidden.

Jesus regularly withdrew to solitary places (Luke 5:16). The Son of God, with only three years of public ministry and urgent mission to accomplish, still prioritized stillness. He had more reason than anyone to stay busy, more important work than anyone else. Yet he stopped. Regularly. Because he understood that presence with the Father was more important than activity for the Father.

If Jesus needed stillness, you certainly do. Your busyness isn't more important than his mission was. Your schedule isn't more urgent than his work. If he could stop, you can too. The question is whether you will.

Thirteen days into October, choose stillness. Not as reward after tasks are completed, but as necessary practice regardless of what remains undone. Mary chose what was better by sitting at Jesus' feet while work remained. You can too. The tasks will wait. Most of them aren't as urgent as they feel. Be still. Be present. The one thing needed is being with God, not doing things for him.