Review & Highlight: Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem

Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem by Kevin DeYoung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

DeYoung authentically shares about his personal struggle with busyness. DeYoung shares that busyness is not a worn as a badge of honour, but because he is so bad at managing his life that he writes as a fellow straggler. In his words, he hopes that us readers will find the book "highly practical and accessibly theological" (p17).

Indeed many of us are addicted to crazy busyness in spite of the emotional, spiritual and physical toll it has on us. An anecdote from DeYoung that resonated with me: "I read an anecdote once about a woman from another culture who came to the United States and began to introduce herself as 'Busy.' It was after all the first first thing she heard when meeting any American. Hello, I'm Busy. She figured it was part of our traditional greeting, so she told everyone she met that's who she was." (p16)

DeYoung suggests that busyness can ruin our joy (p26), rob our hearts (p28) and cover up the rot in our souls (p30). In Chapter 4, The terror of total obligation, I was reminded that "Jesus didn't do it all. Jesus didn't meet every need. He left people waiting in line to be healed. He left one town to preach in another. He hid away to pray. He got tired. He never interacted with the vast majority of people on the planet. he spent thirty years in training and only three years in ministry. He did not try to do it all. And yet he did everything that God asked him to do." (p50)

I relate to his sharing that "I can forget that my circle of influence will inevitably be smaller than my circle of concern. Above all, I can lose sight of the good news that the universe is not upheld by the word of my power (see Heb. 1:3). That's Christ's work, and no-one else can do it. Hallelujah - he doesn't even expect me to try." (p51)

We must set priorities because every yes we say, means saying no to something else. In chapter 5, Mission Creep, Deyoung shares that he too must set priorities because "I cant do it all" (p57) and "if I am to to serve others most effectively" (p60). He also "must allow others to set their own priorities" (p63), sharing that his "own tendency is to to be overly accommodating when put on the spot by an invitation like that. I usually overcommit and lead people on, rather than stating up front what my priorities are (probably because I like pats on the back and prestige and so many of the Ps in Chapter 3 - The manifestations of Pride (People-pleasing, Pats on the back, Performance evaluation, Possessions, Proving myself, Pity, Poor planning, Power, Perfectionism, Position, Prestige, Posting online).

He also helpfully advises "Don't always expect the lunch request to work. Don't get upset when your 'what do you think?' email doesn't get answered. Don't be offended if your need doesn't go to the top of the pile. Understand that people often say 'I'm busy' because saying 'I have many priorities in life and right now you aren't one of them' would be too painful. Don't think it rude if some people have less availability for you than you have for them. And don't begrudge people the time you are so so desperately fighting for. Unless we're God, none of us deserve to the priority for everyone else all the time." (p64)

No book about rest is complete without commenting about the Sabbath, to which DeYoung cites G K Beale's conclusions (from Pages 800-801 in his 2011 book titled A New Testament Biblical Theology): "First, the seventh-day commemoration in Gen. 2:3 and Israel's Sabbath ordinance is transferred to the first day of the week because of Christ's resurrection. Second, Israel's way of observing the Sabbath, with all its detailed requirements, falls away, and there is a return to the creational mandate. The observance of this mandate is a day of commemoration of God's creative rest, a celebration that Christ has entered that rest, that believers have begun to enter such rest, and a pointing forward to believers completely entering that rest. In addition, Christ's coming fulfills Israel's unique Sabbath commandment, since he is Israel's Messiah, accomplishing Israel's end-time exodus and representing true Israel and the end-time temple." (p90-91)

DeYoung puts forth a summary reflection about the sabbath in commenting, "I think the most important part about the Sabbath command is that we should rest in Christ alone for our salvation. But along with that there is still an abiding principle that we ought to worship on the lord's Day and trust God enough to have a weekly routine where we cease from our normal labours." (p91)

Busyness, as DeYoung disgnoses it, "is as much a mindset and a heart sickness as it is a failure in time management. It's possible to live your days in a flurry of hard work, serving and bearing burdens, and to do so with the right character and a right dependence on God so that it doesn't feel crazy busy. By the same token, it's possible to feel amazingly stressed and frenzied while actually accomplishing very little. The antidote to busyness of soul is not sloth and indifference. The antidote is rest, rhythm, death to pride, acceptance of our own finitude and trust in the providence of God." (p102)

[Spoiler alert - I highly recommend that you stop here and read the book to find out what DeYoung emphatically advises us to do to put a stop to our crazy busyness]

In the penultimate chapter of this mercifully short book, this is the "one-point plan" DeYoung calls us to restore order to our life (p113) - "spend time everyday in the Word of God and prayer," that is if you are "sick and tired of feeling so dreadfully busy." This unfortunately is no-quick fix, which would have been great for us consumeristic people. Deyoung did not give us a specific time, as the emphasis is on a consistent habit rather than "a sporadic burst of fits and starts".

Even as a seminary student, I am heartened that DeYoung, the theologian and passionate student of the bible he is, relates to struggling with a devotional time just like I do. And to that, he tells us that "no single practice brings more peace and discipline to life than sitting at the feet of Jesus."

In the ending paragraph of the book, DeYoung has this word of encouragement to leave us with, "It's not wrong to be tired. It's not wrong to feel overwhelmed. It's not wrong to go through seasons of complete chaos. What is wrong - and heartbreakingly foolish and wonderfully avoidable - is to live a life with more craziness than we want because we have less Jesus than we need." (p118)

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