Unknowingly Busy With a Curse?

I am very busy these days.  I am not even busy with business or personal pursuits.  I am busy with work (which is a ministry in itself) and with our church and youth ministries.  I will be busy in church tomorrow.  I am busy preparing for a lesson at a youth camp in Pangasinan this week.  I am busy preparing four plenary messages at another camp in Tuguegarao the following week.  These, on top of my regular daily work as an administrator.  Still, I am warned, and I hope I would respond well, to *Patrick Morley's devotional entry,  "Significance:  About Being Busy".


The following are some excerpts that made me stop and think this Saturday morning -- and I hope you would also:


"What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun?"  - Ecclesiastes 2:22


"In truth busyness does not lead to significance, but to self importance.... Labor which God our Father approves is born in your private watch before Christ.  It is not puffed up in self-importance.  It does not seek to be busy to feel important, it seeks to be busy for the glory of God...."


"Busyness is the curse of the devil.  So what do busy people receive for all their toil and striving?  'All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest.' (Ecclesiastes 2:23)"


Is busyness really a curse of the devil?  Are you busy like me?  Most people I know are busy with studies, work, family, business, ministry and other legitimate concerns, but the question remains -- what do you receive for all your toil and striving?


*Excerpts from Patrick Morley's devotional, "Walking with Christ in the Details of Life".  This devotional, given to me as a gift two years ago has most recently been a source of balanced and gentle rebuke and counsel.  It is an addition to the three devotionals that made significant impacts in my life since accepting Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior in 1993 -- "The Daily Bread", Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest", and Robert J. Morgan's "From This Verse".