Urgent or Important?

Long before the iPhone and “push notifications” and pathological multitasking and the addictive flitting of our eyes from one screen to another, back in the day when you went to the local library to learn a thing or two about Ebola or cholesterol or eschatology, all the way back in 1967 Charles Hummel wrote a booklet called Tyranny of the Urgent. It was timely then.  And it’s really timely now.

Frenzied busyness results not from having too much to do, but from confusing the urgent with the important.  When we fail to set and keep prior­ities, seemingly urgent tasks rise up and demand our atten­tion, eclips­ing the really important duties God gives us.

In John 17:4 Jesus says his work is finished:  He had “accomplished” what the Father gave him to do.  Never mind that many useful tasks were left undone, the Lord had peace:  he knew he’d finished God’s work.  What’s more, Jesus’ life was never feverish; he had time for people.  In the midst of a restless world, he had inward rest.

How did he do this?  “Jesus’ prayerful waiting for God’s instructions freed Him from the tyranny of the urgent.”  Dependence liberates.  By contrast, prayerlessness says we don’t need God and we’d rather carry the burdens of the world ourselves:  exhausting.

Remember, “The need itself is not the call; the call must come from the God who knows our limitations.”  It isn’t your job to fix all the problems you encounter.  Further, “It is not God who loads us until we bend or crack.”  We do it to ourselves.

“If the Christian is too busy to stop, take spiritual inventory, and receive his assignments from God, he becomes a slave to the tyranny of the urgent.”  So be slow to add new obligations to your calendar.

The person who’s too busy to stop and take inventory is “like the fanatic, who, when unsure of his direction, doubles his speed.”  In fact, “frenetic service for God can become an escape from God.”

You see, Jesus “did not finish all the urgent tasks in Palestine or all the things He would have liked to do, but He did finish the work God gave Him to do.”  Let’s focus on the important, not the urgent.