Let’s be honest—life can be really busy! I live in America, one of the wealthiest nations on the planet. Keeping in mind the old saying “Time is money,” I wonder how rich Americans really are. Compared to many developing countries, Americans feel rather poor in their time reserves. No one seems to have enough!

Why do so many of us feel so busy, and what can we do about it?

We long for time to relax and reflect, but many of us get tangled up in hectic schedules that suck up our time like an industrial-strength vacuum! We often tell ourselves we will make time after our schedule gets back to “normal.” But “normal” never seems to happen. The struggle is real to find balance with our time!

This struggle can be represented by using the word “busy” as an acronym, each letter standing for another word. There are two versions of the acronym, two ways of looking at it that give us something to consider.

Brought-Under-Satan’s-Yoke (B.U.S.Y.)

Here is the root of the problem. There is a devil. His name, Satan, means “adversary.” This powerful spirit being is evil and cunning, and he hates us. (See our Bible study aid Is There Really a Devil? to learn more.)

Satan knows that if he can’t get us to reject God and His laws, then he can prevent us from having a close and active relationship with our Creator by keeping us super busy!

We give in too easily, and thus we have “no time” to “seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33, New International Version). But strangely enough, we find the time for lower priority activities like checking Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, watching movies, hanging out, traveling and reading novels.

So let’s move on to the positive—a way to save our time going forward.

Breathe—Understand—Simplify—Yearn (B.U.S.Y.)

Breathe!

It’s impossible to create extra time in the day—trust me, I’ve tried. After spending some time in Africa, I noticed the cultural difference in terms of time management priorities: Relationships came first, then deadlines and punctuality. For sure, there needs to be a balance, but it was interesting to see that life didn’t have to be as busy or stressful as life in America!

Sometimes at work I literally have to remind myself to breathe. This is not how God planned things! Our bodies were not meant to be constantly this busy. Take time to step back from stress and breathe!

Understand God’s plan.

This sounds like a big task, but you’re never too young to seek God wholeheartedly! “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).

Understanding God’s way and seeking Him first will help us to have the right perspective on life. Obeying God brings us into His time rhythm, which greatly revolves around the seventh day of the week—the Sabbath—as a day of rest. Faithfully taking that day off to vertically orient ourselves toward God greatly refreshes our lives and shields us from the devil’s influence.

Simplify your life.

In an age of distractions, we are far too easily influenced by society’s norms and trends. Video gaming, hyper-social networking and television add to the cloud of devices, events and activities that steal our precious time. The tempting but trivial smorgasbord of distractions leads us away from the more important things in life.

Several years ago, I began a life without cable television—a big step for me! Next I freed more time by nixing Netflix. These things aren’t inherently bad, but they can become our go-to activities when we have an ounce of free time. Is there anything in your life making you unnecessarily busy and keeping you from connecting with God and family?

Yearn for the right things.

Ask God to help you focus. We make time for what’s important to us, so it’s important to have the right things be important! “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). After a long day of work, my heart yearns to endlessly scroll Facebook for hours, but wisdom reminds me to find something more fulfilling to do instead, such as taking a walk outside without my phone and focusing on God’s creation.

Time offering

Being busy doesn’t make you a bad person. You might think that your priorities are fine; I did. But Jesus Christ wants us to make Him and His way of life our top priority, to “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is [our] reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

Today, we typically think of sacrifices and offerings in financial terms; showing that God is more important than our money. Yet our time is extremely important to God as well. Instead of being so busy with everything else, our great Creator wants us to be living sacrifices by giving Him the right amount of our time.

We are busy today—possibly busier than at any time in history. Satan will constantly try to consume our time to distract us away from God. But you can take steps to use your time wisely. What does B.U.S.Y. stand for in your life?