Driven

Yesterday I listened again to a message by John Eldredge, he always shares about the heart and how we can be free. His messages challenge our assumptions from our culture and water the soul. The title of the message is, “The Spirit of the Age” which he identifies as drivenness.

Eldredge shares drivenness or unconsidered busyness is a significant enemy in our modern Western society. We are driven to be busy, to always be accessible, interruptible and switched on, and we just believe that it is normal, unavoidable and inevitable. We wear busyness like a badge that we accept as a substitute for real significance.

It’s like we have made an idol out of activity. We fill up the calendar. We work longer hours. We take more phone calls. We say that it is just a busy time. We keep checking email and facebook. We need to keep the kids busy. We need to watch that show. We need to write that blog. Then we complain.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If you have spent time in a culture that isn’t driven on busy then you’ll know what I mean. There’s a good chance that the laidback approach to life may even have bugged you. People take their time, service is slow, people just don’t seem to realise that you have another appointment to get to.

Here’s something that is worth exchanging, something that we can learn from our friends in less ‘developed’ nations. There is life without schedules, email, mobile phones and social networks – perhaps there’s even more life.

How do you think you would personally benefit from some time of solitude, uninterrupted by drivenness?