By Glynnis Whitwer
(Proverbs 31 Ministry Devotional)
 
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” Genesis 2:2 (NIV)
 
There’s an old adage that says, “If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.”

Clearly, the person who wrote this — and the people who repeat it — believe being busy is very wrong. But what if God is actually pleased with the right kind of busy?

Could the problem be our definition of busy? Maybe what we really mean instead of busy is frantic, overwhelmed or too busy.

The dictionary defines busy as something quite pleasant: “actively and attentively engaged in work or a pastime.” That sounds great!

Yet, it’s too easy to look at our chaotic lives, cluttered homes and fractured relationships and think the problem must surely be that we are busy. But how can being attentive and engaged cause those problems?

Unfortunately, sin has distorted God’s gift of work. Too many of us are working more than we should, or we are busy with the wrong things, things that aren’t ours to do. Consequently, we are experiencing levels of emotional and physical exhaustion that impact our ability to enjoy God’s gift of rest.

God designed work to be a healthy part of our lives, not drive us into the ground. It’s how we live out our God-given design and use our gifts and talents. God even opened the entire Bible with an example of work. But He also made sure to model rest as well. Our key verse shows us the importance of both: “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” (Genesis 2:2).

Yet sin leaves us wounded in every area of life, and work is no exception. Sin broke the divine work/rest rhythm God established, so it’s not surprising we don’t have a healthy view of how these two major components of our lives should complement each other.

There are so many lies that prod us to work more than we should, but each one has the same root Satan used on Adam and Eve: We are our own providers, and we know better than God.

When we feel that our safety, security and significance depend on us, we will not know when to stop working. We will push ourselves beyond capacity. And we will take on more than we can handle.
The alternative is so simple, yet so hard. It’s what God wanted all along. He wants us to trust Him. Trust Him with our daily needs. Trust Him to open doors of opportunity. Trust Him to define our identity.
If we truly trusted God, we would not look for work to supply our needs. God would be our provider and work would be our calling. And rest would be a gift, not something we resent because it keeps us from working.

For so many years, I thought I could manage my over-busy life with smarter productivity tips alone. Those worked for a while, but I always got myself back into chaos, because I never addressed the root cause of why I tend to be too busy.

This is the journey God has had me on for the past few years. He’s been trying to teach me that His plan for work was never intended as a burden. And that His gift of rest is one I shouldn’t reject.
When I started to really honor the Sabbath, to understand rest as God meant it, the Lord removed the chains to over-work that I could never shake off.

God has wired me to work, and I need to accept it. But I’m also created to work best when I submit to God’s plan, which involves rest. I’m learning that it’s OK to be busy, so long as I do it God’s way.
 
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The weekly devotionals seek to encourage you to dig deeper into Scripture as you take the time to daily read, meditate, and internalize the verses in the devotional, along with the passages provided below to give greater context. Take the time to read them throughout the week (repetition is important) and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp what God is showing you about Himself, about you, and how to live in light of these truths. 

Passages to read/memorize/meditate:
Psalm 46:10
Matthew 11:28
Matthew 25:25-34
Luke 10:38-42
Romans 12:2

 
Questions to reflect on:

1. Have you found your identity in busyness?
2. What do you think is the root cause of wanting to be busy all the time?
3. What are practical ways of creating margin in your life?
4. How does busyness affect your relationship with the Lord, others and yourself?
5. When you take the time to rest, how does that affect your relationship with the Lord, others and yourself?

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve (Colossians 3:23-24)
 
It’s ironic that as much as we want to grow as people, it’s not always easy to accept when we are challenged by people or situations.  

My husband challenged me this past week with a thought that has lingered with me, reminding me that I am still a work in progress. As we are continuing to grow in our marriage, he presented the truth of how much different our relationship with each other, with others, and our everyday tasks could look if we did everything “unto the Lord” as Scripture commands. It sounds good and it sounds easy-after all, everything we do is for His glory, right?

However, If I’m completely honest, I allow my feelings to get in the way more often than I would like to admit. There have been times where I didn’t feel appreciated because I did something for my husband and he didn’t say “thank you.” Or I put my whole heart in preparing for something that didn’t get the outcome I thought I would and I felt so discouraged. There were times where I wasn’t happy with my job so I complained and wasn’t as diligent as I should have been. The truth is we are all susceptible to letting our feelings dictate our actions. It’s easier to let the flesh rule.

As much as we want to genuinely love and serve people, our fallen nature subconsciously seeks approval, acknowledgement and reciprocation. When we don’t get it, we are discouraged or offended. But the hope is that He can give us the strength to look up and say “It’s unto You, Lord.”

This Scripture passage is also a reminder that there is nothing too small that doesn’t deserve God’s glory. Everything we do is an act of worship- from the way we clean our spaces, approach our job, clean after our children, and the list goes on; every act matters to the Lord. It’s a daily battle to lift our heads up a little higher so we may look to Him—the ONE whom we are called to serve. The ONE who is supposed to be pleased. Man being pleased by our actions is a bonus. God being pleased by our actions is a must. This doesn’t give us the liberty to be dismissive of how our actions affect people, but it challenges us to look beyond it when it’s not kind, gentle, reciprocated or appreciated.  

We must fight through the feelings of inadequacy, reciprocity, or being plain selfish. Our reward comes from God. It won’t always feel good when we don’t receive the reward here on earth, but it’s an anchoring and freeing Truth to know that God sees us and He rewards us when we seek to genuinely please Him.
 
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The weekly devotionals seek to encourage you to dig deeper into Scripture as you take the time to daily read, meditate, and internalize the verses in the devotional, along with the passages provided below to give greater context. Take the time to read them throughout the week (repetition is important) and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp what God is showing you about Himself, about you, and how to live in light of these truths. 
 
Passages to read/meditate/memorize:
Proverbs 16:7
1 Corinthians 10:31
Ephesians 5:10
Colossians 3:23-24
Galatians 1:10
1 Thessalonians 2:4

 
Questions to reflect on:
 

1. List all the things you do during the day. Evaluate how you can seek to please the Lord in each of them.
2. How have you allowed your feelings to dictate your actions?
3. How would your life look different if you did every little thing “unto the Lord?”
4. What is God showing you about yourself through this devotional?

“Well done good and faithful servant…"(Matthew. 25:23)
 
These are the words we want stringed together at the end of our lives as we stand before our Righteous and Holy God.

These are also the words we should want to hear daily. 
 
Faithfulness is daily.
 
Our walk with the Lord and in the Lord doesn't promise us earthly benefits. This path will be one with warfare and struggles, but He assures us of the Joy that is set before us in being with our Father, forever, in Heaven. What great reward! What great Hope!
 
It’s this Hope that pushes us to be faithful. It’s what allows us to “count it all joy when we face hardships and various trials, knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result so that we may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing” (James 1: 2-4).
 
The truth is, we don’t drift into faithfulness. We must daily choose to fix and gaze our eyes on Christ, the author and perfecter of our Faith (Hebrews 12:2).
 
Faithfulness looks like opening our Word when everything in our flesh wants to sleep more or get other things done. It looks like heading over to Bible Study when we rather be alone. It's in our loving and bearing each other’s burdens even when we've been hurt by others (Galatians 6). It's in our joyfully serving in our local church, loving the fellowship with one another-no matter what our personality type. It's in our commitment to prayer, not giving up or losing heart even when our prayers haven't been answered. 

He delights in our faithfulness.
 
Sadly, we live in a world that is allergic to faithfulness. If something (or someone for that matter) doesn’t feel good or it’s uncomfortable, then move on to the next thing. If it’s not feeding your desires, why stick with it? Why struggle when there are so many options to experience freedom? This is the stream we have to swim up against. While faithfulness doesn’t come naturally to us, it’s a daily pursuit that is built as we rely on the Holy Spirit to draw us nearer to God.
 
Our faithfulness to Him strengthens as we focus on His faithfulness to us. His Word reminds us that when we were deep in our sin, having no desire to know Him or love Him, He died for us (Romans 5:8).  He extended His grace and mercy when we didn’t (and never will) deserve it. What’s more astounding is that He is faithful to us even when we are not faithful to Him because He can’t deny who He is (2 Timothy 2:13). It’s His character to be faithful. This shows us that it was never on the basis of our works or our faithfulness to Him that allowed us to encounter such love. It has always and will always be about Him. He can’t go against who He is. This is encouraging to our faith.
 
We are quick to associate His faithfulness to us based on our faithfulness to Him, leaving us in an unstable relationship with the Lord, always wondering if we are loved by Him or secure in Him. We lack the true peace and joy that is assured in Him when we are constantly looking at our relationship with Him like our other human relationships. We must realize that God is not man that He should lie. For those of us who love and fear Him, He doesn’t deal with us according to our unfaithfulness (Psalm 103:10) because if that was the case, He wouldn’t have dealt with us at all. He deals with us according to His loving-kindness. According to His love. According to His faithfulness (Isaiah 63:7). We need to rest in these Truths.
 
His unfading faithfulness conforms us to His image, daily sanctifying us in Him so that our lives will grow brighter and clearer in representing Him.
 
May we treasure His faithfulness to us. His Word is filled with the richness of every faithful promise to those who love and fear Him. May we also treasure those in our lives who are faithful to Him. They are ones whom we should look to and glean from. Their faithfulness is a testament to His goodness and never-ending love. May we pursue to emulate that faithfulness as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).
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The weekly devotionals seek to encourage you to dig deeper into Scripture as you take the time to daily read, meditate, and internalize the verses in the devotional, along with the passages provided below to give greater context. Take the time to read them throughout the week (repetition is important) and ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp what God is showing you about Himself, about you, and how to live in light of these truths. 

Passages to read/meditate/memorize:


Isaiah 63:7
Psalm 103:10
Romans 5
James 1:2-4
Hebrews 12:2
Galatians 6
2 Peter 3:18
2 Timothy 2:13
 
 
Questions to reflect on:
 
1. Write down the ways in which you have seen God’s faithfulness over your life.
 
 2. How have you remained faithfulness to the Lord? What makes it easy or hard to do so?
 
3. Take this week to meditate on the Scriptures (like the ones above and others) that show you and remind you of God’s faithfulness to you.​