Recently, I answered some questions given to me about my new book, Addicted to Busy. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

1) I think most people who are too busy realize this, but wonder if there is a way out of it, given the crushing demands of life. What do you say to them?

I certainly understand that most people have a tremendous amount of stress because of seemingly unending responsibilities. The truth is, though, we all have wasted space in our lives. At some point, we have to stop and evaluate what is really important and make hard choices to stop things that are simply not fruitful. Even the healthiest, holiest people have some rhythms that don’t serve them well.

Maybe you need to be needed and chronically sign up for more than what your soul’s capacity will allow. Maybe you consistently neglect to carve out time to spend with God each day, or you “come down” from a work week in a less-than-stellar way. Think about your own life-your own daily ebbs and flows. What rhythms aren’t serving you well? Which could stand to be adjusted or altogether removed? On a sheet of paper or in your journal, jot down the unhealthy rhythms that come to mind.

Next, beside each rhythm you’ve noted, record the toll each one is taking on your life. For example, if you don’t spend daily time reading the Scriptures or praying, you may feel your days lack purpose or that a pervasive spirit of anxiety hovers over you like a cloud. Or, if you tend to relax after a long work week by drinking too much or neglecting quality time with your family, you may feel disconnected from those you love most. If you struggle to count the cost for each unhealthy rhythm you jotted down, try asking the question, “What would be working better in my life if I could shift this rhythm from unhealthy to healthy?” The answer to that question just might reveal to you what it is you presently lack.

2) I wonder if the two are related, in some way. Does the lack of self-care for pastors, the inability to create margin, create fertile soil for sin?

Every problem I see in every person I know ultimately is a problem of moving too fast for too long in too many aspects of life. And I see a lot of problems.

Sex and money problems in marriage come back to the issue of speed. (How eager for intimacy are you, when you’re exhausted at the end of yet another grueling work day?) Negligence in business practices comes back to the issue of speed.

Friendships that aren’t quite clicking can usually point to the culprit of speed.

Speed is the single greatest threat to a healthy life, and it is also our greatest defense. We think if we can keep going, keep moving, keep plowing ahead, our conscience won’t have time to catch us because—ha, ha!—we’ll already be long gone.

And the reality is, this approach actually works. But only for a time. We must be able to live in an easy rhythm between give and take. If we cannot learn to live and breathe in this rhythm, we will place ourselves in grave danger. Maybe even the literal grave.

3) Some pastors might read this interview and think, “That’s great. A mega-church pastor has resources to create margin, what about the busy, small-church pastor or bi-vocational pastor?” Does your book scale to them?

I am the pastor of a megachurch, but I have also served as the pastor of a 100-year church of 50 people in a small West Texas farming town. I was just as busy in Hereford, TX as I am now, seriously. Recently, a long time friend, who pastors a small congregation said to me, “I cannot imagine how busy you are!” I told him he was just as busy as me.

In my small church, I was the staff. I did all the weddings, all the funerals, all the hospital visits, went to all the committee meetings and preached most of the sermons. If there was ever a group of people who need to read my book, it is the pastors in rural and urban America.

4) Sometimes the problem with busyness isn’t so much an unwillingness on the part of a pastor or church leader but the people he serves who won’t allow him to find rest and peace. What do you recommend to this kind of leader?

Rest has to be a part of the culture of any healthy congregation. As I am writing this, I just completed a 3-month sabbatical that my elders gave me and my family after seven years of service to the church. Every full-time employee at New Life gets a sabbatical of varying lengths, depending on their scope of responsibility, every seven years. There were some elders who have never been a pastor who were hesitant to endorse this idea in the beginning, because they felt the church was already generous with vacation time to its employees. Sabbaticals are different than vacations. I believe vacations are for fun, retreats are for reflection, Sabbath days are for rest, but sabbaticals are for renewal.

Today, our elders have seen the fruit of giving this added time to our team. We have high morale at New Life, very little turnover, and a high level of healthy innovation and creativity. I would suggest pastors get a copy of Addicted to Busy for every member of their boards and let this book start some healthy dialogue about the culture of rhythm and rest at their church. We believe each of our staff should have the resources and training to fulfill their job descriptions in less than 50 hours per week and not be away from home and their families more than three nights a week, on average. This is a healthy rhythm that starts from the senior pastor and is affirmed by the church leadership.

If the current leadership does not understand or is not supportive, I can predict what is next—frustration, burnout, and ultimately a new pastor and staff every 3-5 years. Vocational ministry is unique in its demands because we are on the spiritual front lines for the souls of people. That is gloriously difficult work that requires seasons of rest.

I’ve been a pastor for two decades now, and while most every profession requires a little on-the-job training, there are a few things I wish somebody would have told me before I got started so that I didn’t have to learn them the hard way.

Such as: I’ll always be tempted to measure my success by my church’s attendance numbers. Or, the best thing I can do for my congregation is to quit comparing myself to other pastors and simply be me. Or, I will only be given as much spiritual authority as the amount of spiritual authority I’m willing to submit to. Or, my brain will always feel like scrambled eggs on Sunday afternoon. Or, while it’s true that sheep bites can’t kill me, the general congregational gnawing every pastor is made to withstand will make life miserable a few (very long) days each year.

As it relates to being a person governed not by busyness but by healthy rhythms, not by chaos but by an inner sense of calm, here are three things I also wish I would have known.

1. Rest is opposed

During the early days of my marriage, when I was running too fast and pushing too hard, I found it difficult to “come down.” I feared the loneliness and boredom I knew rest would usher in, so I kept upping my RPMs, with fingers crossed I’d avoid a crash. But we can’t stay up forever; we always have to come down. And because I refused to slow myself in a healthy manner, I was forced to walk a treacherous path. Mine was paved with Internet porn. From a place of deep humility, I’ve shared with my congregation how challenging it was to untangle myself from the grip of pornography across the span of several years in my twenties, but by God’s grace, I did get free.

For years, I looked back on that stretch of sinfulness with disbelief; how could I stoop to that level? I was in ministry. I was supposedly living for God. I adored and admired my wife. And yet, still, I’d find myself sitting in front of a computer screen, long after Pam had gone to bed, staring at stuff I had no business staring at, regretting the minutes even as they ticked by.

Things make more sense to me now. When we don’t say yes to God’s form of rest, we will say yes to a fraudulence instead — porn or gin, drugs or gambling, idle chatter or extravagant spending — all in the name of “unwinding.” It’s all proof that real rest is opposed, and that rest without God is anything but restful in the end.

2. Ruthlessness is required

Living rhythmically may sound like a breezy proposition, but to execute it well, we have to stand our ground. About 18 months ago, I called together the senior-most leaders of New Life Church. These are the men and women who report directly to me, the ones who oversee every ministry within our church. Typically I’m a big fan of delegation, of giving away all the control I don’t actually need. But for more than three years’ time, I’d asked to be part of decisions I normally wouldn’t need to weigh in on; a founding-pastor scandal, a fatal shooting on campus, and a fast and furious financial downturn demanded that I did.

When that three-year period came to a close the stress level let up, which would have been terrific news, except that I missed the cue that we had clawed our way out of the woods. My senior staff kept bringing me what I now instinctively knew were junior-level questions, and my frustration level rose by the day. Unwittingly, I’d neglected to inform them that we had shifted from “crisis mode” to “normal, everyday mode,” and all of us were suffering mightily as a result. They were trying to include me in their minutia, and I was expending precious energy fending off their incessant requests. A guy could die from being needed this much! I called a meeting for the purpose of informing them that if they preferred a pastor who was alive, then they would resume handling their own affairs. To which they said, “Um, all due respect, Pastor Brady, but you created this madness you now despise.”

They were right, and all of us knew it. We shared a good laugh, re-upped our commitment to saner processes, and moved forward toward brighter days. But not before the lesson lodged in my heart: yes, crises often causes temporary chaos, but we’ll kill ourselves from perpetual crisis mode. Every day can’t be a fire drill. We’ve got to fight to keep life sweet and sane.

3. The reward is the presence of God

Once I began taking rest and rhythm seriously in my life, I think I expected a marching band to materialize, blowing horns and celebrating my great success. “Way to go, Pastor Brady, for being a Sabbath-keeper! You’re officially holy and righteous and good!” I never would have admitted it publicly, but privately I hoped for some shiny angel to appear, to deliver the divine prize package I’d so dutifully earned.

The shiny angel never showed up.

What did show up was intimacy with God. Still today, the more I practice restfulness of mind and spirit, the more I experience the presence of God.

We observe the sacrament of communion nearly every weekend at New Life Church, and one thing I always notice is that it’s hard to hustle through the wine and the bread. It’s nearly impossible to still the soul when the body is still rushing around. And that’s a very good thing. We need to stop. We need to savor. We need to consider God’s presence with us there. That presence is the reward for rest, and it’s better than any marching band. In his presence is his power, and in his power is victory in the end — over all that tries to entangle us, over life’s chaos and madness and pain.

For more reading on this topic, consider my newest book, Addicted to Busy.

Five years into my marriage, my wife met me at the door with her bags packed.

I should have seen it coming. I had packed my life with jobs and positions and commitments out of my deep-seated need to be needed. I was too busy, and the gentle, calm woman I’d married five years prior had decided she would rather be single than be married and do life all alone.

“Pam,” I said, my voice low and my words slow, “if you will stay here tonight—if you will agree not to leave tonight—I will walk in tomorrow and resign.” The red rims around her eyes told me she’d been crying all afternoon. “No, you won’t,” she challenged. “You won’t.” I asked for 24 hours, to prove that I’d make good on my plan. And by that time the following day, I had resigned every last role.

That was one of the first times I realized I have a problem: I’m addicted to being busy.

And it’s not just me. Every problem I see, in every person I know, ultimately is a problem of moving too fast for too long in too many aspects of life. Every problem. And I’m a pastor, so I see a lot of problems.

We think if we can keep going, keep busy, keep plowing ahead, our conscience won’t have time to catch us because—ha, ha!—we’ll already be long gone. And the reality is this approach actually works. But only for a time. “Life is like the breath,” writes Brother David Steindl-Rast. “We must be able to live in an easy rhythm between give and take. If we cannot learn to live and breathe in this rhythm, we will place ourselves in grave danger.” Maybe even the literal grave.

Because it’s easy for me to chase after the tempting buzz of busy living, I’ve learned to recognize the signs that my addiction has kicked in again. If you lean toward over-scheduled and under-rested, consider these danger signs of a busyness addiction:

You Feel Like You’re in Your Glory When You’re Busiest.

This really should be the first clue that something is amiss. You see, I like how success feels. I don’t want to unplug. I don’t want to relax. The last thing I crave is rest. I’m a recovering speed-and-wild-success junkie who never wants to come down, and to allow any semblance of white space is to cause the undesirable effects of withdrawal.

You’re More Fascinated With Gadgets Than With God.

I got to work a few days ago and realized I’d left my phone at home. The all-out search that proved futile and the ensuing overwhelming angst I experienced were significant. I think I was more distraught than if I’d misplaced one of my children. How am I going to get through this day without my phone? I thought.

A different kind of call was coming in, even as I searched for the device. It was a call from God: “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” Of course I didn’t pick up.

God tried again: “Lay your burdens down, child. Walk with me, and your walk will be burden-free.” To which I didn’t respond. Again.

God stays the course: “I want you to be fascinated not with trinkets, but with me.” Still, no response.

Ever-patient, ever-persistent, God went for it a fourth time: “Slow down. Look up. Linger here with me.”

It was then I thought I heard something. Wait. Was that the voice of God?

But then, I hear a subtle ding from my phone, which had been in my laptop bag the entire time. The ding was alerting me to a text message that had just arrived. My thumb couldn’t help itself—it was itching to swipe. As I reached for my phone, all attention focused on that new text, I simultaneously scored one for the enemy of my soul.

Technology is not a bad thing in itself, but when we’re more tuned into our iPhone alerts than to our Creator, it’s a problem.

Your Favorite Compliment Has Become, “Wow. You’re Always so Busy.”

Behind the” I’m-so-busy-it-would-blow-your-mind” conversations is the motivation for all my busyness. I have a theory on this, which is that busyness is our means to impress. If I’m busy, then I’m important, and if I’m important, then you’ll be impressed. That’s the reason I spend so much time being busy: to impress you, so perhaps I’ll feel like I matter. Impression management becomes a full-time job, and it’s exhausting.

You Don’t Have Time for the Ones You Love.

These days, years after that day of packed bags at the door, I don’t let things get that far. But still there are times when I can see in my wife’s weary gaze that I’ve been pushing and driving too hard. It’s the worst warning sign of all, I think, the one that says, “You’re hurting the ones you most love.”

For some people, it takes a world-rocking tragedy or the loss of everything they hold dear in order to finally learn how to slow down, to tend to their souls, to rest—it takes some sort of death. I hope that won’t be true for you. I’m determined it won’t be true for me. I’m resolving instead to go down a different path, a path paved with rest and peace.

Consider this: God is not merely a peaceful person; God, in fact, is peace. When you and I sit in God’s presence, we’re sitting in the presence of peace. And when we sit there—actually stay there, quiet, still—we come away breathing differently. We come away with steadied souls. From there, astoundingly, we can become people of peace. We can become more like God.

This is why God’s invitation is so profound, the invitation to come to Him to find our rest: He can actually deliver on what He promises, something the world never will be able to do.

I want this type of restfulness. I want to say yes to this.

We slow down—to rest, to contemplate, to lollygag with God—because slow can pay serious dividends, for our bodies, for our minds, for our souls.

Want more? My new book Addicted to Busy is now available along with small group study guides and a 12-day Addicted to Busy Challenge.

Read below for another example of the email devotionals you will receive from me if you sign up for the 12-Day Addicted to Busy Challenge.  To get these short and encouraging emails for 12 days, sign up here.

We can learn a lot about how to pace ourselves if we look at how Jesus paced himself. In this step, we’ll look at a few simple ways to live at the Jesus Pace tomorrow:

• The Jesus Pace is rhythmic. Take a look at your schedule for tomorrow, keeping in mind Jesus’s propensity to engage, engage, engage, and then withdraw. In the course of tomorrow’s plans, where will you withdraw and allow yourself to rest? Go ahead and block the time or times now. Decide when you will withdraw, and then tomorrow, commit to doing just that.
• The Jesus Pace is relational. Specific quiet times alone with God are great, but even greater is a constant flow of communication over the course of a given day. Just for tomorrow, see if you can’t raise your awareness of his presence and his power, and then chat with him as you go about your day. Tell him what’s on your heart as you walk from one meeting into the next. Ask him for discernment as you engage in conversation with a friend or associate. Practice chatting with God all throughout the day, and see if the interactions don’t work wonders for your spirit by the time you lay your head down that night.
• The Jesus Pace is resolute. As you walk through tomorrow’s agenda, insist on choosing peace. When your toddler is throwing a tantrum, take a deep breath and simply choose peace. When your boss is demanding an impossible deadline, simply choose peace. When there is traffic and construction and the guy behind you is laying on his horn, choose peace. When the annoying family member calls or the needy friend texts, take a step back from the situation and determine in your heart to choose peace. Say the words aloud if that helps you: “I. Choose. Peace.” But whatever you do, make peace your choice.

Get ready: once you’ve practiced the Jesus pace for a day, you will want to do it more often.

My family and I have just returned from a summer sabbatical, thanks to the generosity of my church and its leadership. We traveled, spent time with some family, took long walks together, went on bike rides, slept late, stayed up late, went to bed early, read some books, watched some movies, did some chores around the house and disconnected from work and school. It was one of the best summers of our lives. So, what did I learn from my time away?

1. I really like my family

Ok, I really loved them before the sabbatical, but the fact that we still spoke to one another after a road trip to Florida and back was proof positive that love can survive anything. I will not do that again, but I’m grateful for the six days of driving America’s freeways that produced mostly laughs along the way. The sound of our own wheels did not drive us crazy. In fact, we really enjoyed one another’s company, even when mom and dad belted out 80′s tunes from the radio.

2. I really like my church

The hardest part of the sabbatical was being away from New Life, even though I watched online most Sundays. Being with the tribe of New Lifers is really important to our family and Sundays felt a bit hollow without the hugs and prayers of our congregation. I needed the break from teaching and preaching so my mind could rest and recharge, but I missed that holy moment each Sunday when the crowd becomes a worshipping family and singing prayers lift the rafters. I missed coming to the Lord’s Table together.

3. I really like my team

Most of my friends are people that serve with me at the church. I spent some great time with long-time friends from Texas, lingered with my family in Louisiana and hung out with some pastor friends, but I really missed the day-to-day interaction that only happens with the people who are alongside me in the trenches of local church ministry. Today, I re-entered the routine of coffee and conversations with my cadre. It felt right again. It felt like home, again.

This Sunday, I return to the church I love, teaching the people I admire, in a city and state I adore. It took a summer sabbatical to remind me that I’m right where I need to be, belonging to a family and church that likes one another.