Hen EggsEver seen a hen sitting on her eggs? Looks like she isn’t doing much, but she is providing a vital function to keep her (future) chicks alive.

It is not necessarily a good thing to be running around at break neck speed juggling 20 things all at once. Busy-ness is not necessarily a virtue, even though many admire it. Those who are busy sometimes are secretly proud of their busy-ness and may even look down on those who… in their view… look like a mother hen.

Jesus did not view “busy-ness” as a virtue. In fact, he called people away from it. This is recorded in Mark 6:31 (NIV), “Because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.'” This is Jesus’ way of saying… “Slow down and chill out. It’s more important to be with me. What you think is all that important is meaningless in the big scheme of eternity. Seriously… listen to me!”

Jesus would NOT be hurried. Once when he was on his way to heal a child that was dying, he stopped to help someone who had (By comparison) a hangnail (Mt 9:18-26). The essential must not take over the important. Jesus was the perfect model of not being hurried by people or circumstances. Remember what he said about all these things? It is found in Mt 6:19-20, 25-31…

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 25 Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry…

The best thing a lot of people could do is “choose the better part” and let important things go for sake of essentials.