Objective: Self-appraisal of your divine productivity or work with God.
Question: What does it mean to be busy?
– Having a great deal to do.
– Keeping oneself occupied.
– Running up and down doing things not profitable.
– Full of activity.
Can I ask a question? If you have a lot to do or you keep yourself occupied by one
thing or the other, does that translate to a yield, answer, result, profit or
productivity? – No.
So, are we right to say we can be busy doing one thing or the other but that thing
does not necessarily bring profit or result?
Example:
– We can be busy coming to church every time without profiting the church or
ourselves.
– A big tree that doesn’t yield fruits can be said to be busy occupying space. Is
that right? No preaching, no soul, no character change, no attraction to people.
Question: What does it mean to be fruitful?
Producing much fruit, fertile.
Producing good or helpful results i.e. productive.
Producing many offspring i.e. children.
E.g. We can then say a tree that has fruits on it is fruitful, right? – Yes, because we
can see the results which is fruits.
So, that means to be fruitful we must see tangible results; evidence, produce.
We want to all appraise ourselves today both spiritually and physically. Have we
been just running around or have we been productive with our lives?
– Most times we spend our day running back and forth:
Phone calls.
WhatsApp.
Instagram.
Facebook.
Replying or sending emails.
Returning calls.
And before you know it, the day is gone and nothing has been done on your to do
list for the day. yet you have a lot- What do you call a day like that? Busy or
fruitful?
Remember we said fruitfulness is known by results, so if you will get any results in
life, it will not be by accident.
Fruitfulness is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent
planning and focused effort.
So, we can say:
Busyness is as a result of lack of intelligent planning. There wouldn’t be
commitment or focused effort because nothing was planned.
Note – Ask yourself:
– What task are you doing daily?
– Is it meaningful or meaningless?
– How much time is it consuming?
– What profit do you get from all the time you invest?
If you are not careful you can be wasting a lot of time on meaningless tasks.
Remember – time na money.
When busy:
- You can accomplish little.
- You overload yourself with unprofitable deeds.
- Leading to you not being able to do your main task.
- Affects your credibility.
How can we solve the issue of busyness?
1) Slow down your brain.
2) Take stock of your activities.
3) Be brutally honest with yourself about your ways.
4) Try and understand the difference between what is urgent and what is
important.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (former president of the United States) devised
“Eisenhower’s decision matrix.”
He said that “what is important is seldom urgent. What is urgent is seldom
important.”
- He said most people fall into the trap of believing that all urgent activities are
also important, thereby unable to accurately see and assess our priorities.
Stephen Covey’s- In his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” he
refined Eisenhower’s decision matrix into 4 quadrants. (I recommend we read).
Quadrant 1
– Tasks that are both urgent and important requires immediate attention.
Quadrant 2
– Tasks without deadlines that help you achieve your goals. Centers around
relationship building.
Quadrant 3
– Urgent and not important tasks.
– Tasks require action now.
Quadrant 4
– Tasks that are neither urgent nor important.
– Tasks do not assist you in achieving your short or long-term goals
– e.g. surfing web, Television, social media.
Spiritually
The Bible says when we return to Jesus, we want to hear “Well done, my faithful
servant.”
Question is: What are you supposed to be doing for Jesus, such that you will hear
that?
- You need to know why God created you. It’s in knowing it that you will be
able to figure out what you ought to be doing.
– The Bible says He has given all of us talents according to our abilities,
some 5, 2, 1. How are you using yours?
– Have you been busy struggling with someone else’s job? Or have you been
diligently using your talent so that even you see results?
Question: What am I called to do?
Writer.
Singer.
Preacher.
Teacher.
Encourager.
Do you render help?
How many souls have you won?
– Am I slothful in doing it or tenacious about it?
- Some people would say “I don’t know what I am called to do.” if you haven’t
found out, then start doing the general ones revealed in the Scriptures. i.e.
– We are all called to evangelize.
– We are all called to be kind to strangers. (Good Samaritans).
1) Physically
Question- What plan do you have for yourself in life? (Note the word plan. We
saw this word pop up when we were talking about attributes of fruitfulness and we
said intelligent planning was one.)
2) How do you intend to achieve this plan?
3) When do you intend to do it? (Time frame; procrastination)
4) Who do you want to involve?
5) What help will you need?
When you list out all these, it helps with your planning. Once planning is in place,
execution will be easy.
Remember Nehemiah. He had a purpose (Got a word from God).
- What was it – To rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and the burned gates.
Then he planned:
– Sat down and wept (mourned but got up).
– Fasted and prayed before God of heaven.
– Asked for forgiveness of sin.
– Reminded God of His word.
– Went to do his work before his king.
– Made a request from the king.
– Asked for letters.
Examples of busy people in the Bible:
– Gehazi.
– Eli’s sons.
Examples of fruitful people:
– Elisha.
– Joshua.
– Samuel.
– Joseph.
– Daniel.
– David.
Written By: Yetunde Oriolowo