Now almost a decade ago, an American lady went viral after contracting bronchitis from a house fire. Her famous words? Ain’t nobody got time for that! People use this expression when they experience an inconvenience they didn’t plan for and don’t feel like dealing with (e.g. their car breaks down, someone is being melodramatic, they get bronchitis, etc.) Most people in modern society identify as being “busy.” In fact, not being busy and in a hurry is often conflated with laziness and underachievement. There is truth to the expression, “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.” But could the opposite also be true?
Corrie Ten Boom once said that if the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy. There’s truth in that. Both sin and busyness have the exact same effect—they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul.
John Mark Comer
However, a lot of us have the “ain’t-nobody-got-time-for-that” mentality when it comes to other people’s hardships and pain. The world, as they say, stops for no one. Not only that, but the world often exploits people who are in a position of weakness.
In nature, the lion does not say to the rabbit with a broken leg, “I will come back later so you can have a fair chance.” It just devours.
And a lot of us have that same “ain’t-nobody-got-time-for-that” mentality when it comes to our own hardships and pain. Inner healing requires special attention. It requires patience. It requires grace. Inner healing requires discipline to cultivate new healthy habits and rid oneself of old bad ones. When these virtues are absent, an individual’s backlog of trauma gets larger over time. While it may be painful to realize that our current attitudes and processes have not facilitated healing, it is actually very hopeful.
Hurry is not of the devil. Hurry is the devil.
Carl Jung
Healing From Trauma
There are a lot of articles on this blog that address the topic of trauma and inner healing. Trauma and inner healing are a big part of recovering from addiction, bad habits, vices, and an overall downward life trajectory. If you read people’s inspiring testimonies on getting free from a lack of sexual integrity, you may begin to notice a theme: many people’s problem with pornography and addiction was accompanied by unresolved trauma.
On the other hand, freedom from addiction and vice is about becoming a particular kind of person. A person who does not medicate their problems in destructive ways. But also someone whose heart is healed. When we combine a lack of inner healing with a fallible human nature, the end result is typically bad, if not downright tragic. Inner healing is really not optional for people who want to get free from addiction and other life hindrances.
There’s a story in the Gospels of a woman named Mary and her sister, Martha. Jesus was visiting in their house. Mary was busy doing chores, while her sister Martha was fellowshipping with Jesus. After Mary complained about Martha, Jesus said to her, “You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:41).
One thing is necessary.
The obvious takeaway here is that spending time with Jesus should have been the priority. It was the most important, even necessary thing for her to be doing in that moment.
The fact is we have to make tradeoffs in life. Time spent doing one thing is necessarily time not spent doing something else. It follows that the quality of an action should be measured by its relative importance to an individual at a particular moment in time. If we need healing, it’s never okay to use business as an excuse.
For more, see Fear Is Why We Are Always In A Rush | My Healing Testimony After 5 Years Of Debilitating Neck Pain / Back Pain / Vocal Dysfunction.
