“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” Psalm 42:1 ESV
I have seen two great tragedies when it comes to being too busy for God. Both are like consumption, also known as tuberculosis. Per Wikipedia online, consumption is spread in the air, ordinarily affects the lungs, and is marked with breathing problems and other symptoms, and was called consumption because of the wasting away of a person. Potentially fatal, it can be treatable in this modern day normally over a long period of time. What does this have to do with being too busy for God?
Many are wasting away because we are consumed with one of two things and are thus too busy for God. In the first, many of us are too busy with “our” lives and this world, living for ourselves and what we wish, want, and desire, living according to the world’s ways and bowing our knees to the devil and this life’s pleasures, having no time for God, no belief in Him, no desire for Christ, wasting away with multiple symptoms of a heart and life turned away from Christ and God’s ways. Consumed with worldliness. Wasting away. Tragedy number one.
Tragedy number two. Many are consumed with Christianity. With church, sermons, preaching, church picnics, pastors, Bible studies, small groups, church events, church activities, Christian bookstores and books, prayer groups, Christian fellowship, Christian lectures, Christian service opportunities, Christian volunteer work, Sunday school, serving God and others, etc. So consumed with all this we simply have little, and oftentimes no, time to sit at Christ’s feet alone and seek, learn of, hear from, obey, and worship God. Consumed with Christianity not Christ. Wasting away.
Oh, but if only we would be consumed with Christ! Not consumed with “our” lives and this world and its ways. Not consumed with Christianity and its busyness. But consumed with the Lord Jesus Christ, with God the Father, with the Holy Spirit, with the Word of God, with living for Christ, hungering and thirsting for a deeper faith in Jesus, a deeper devotedness to Christ, a deeper knowing Him, a deeper relationship with Him, a deeper love for Him, a deeper service to Him, a deeper commitment to serving Him as a fruit of our passion for Him, yes, with deeper passion, deeper seeking Him, craving Him, clinging to Him, cleaving to Him, with utter consumption. What then of wasting away? Must there be one? Yes! A wasting away of self, of sin, of what we desire for ourselves. A death to self. And a living for Jesus! Oh, be consumed with Him!
A forever relationship with God and heaven are for those consumed with the Lord. Not with ourselves. Not with this world. Not with Christianity as a religion. With Christ as Lord! Are you consumed? With Christ?