You maybe already feel so burdened by your busyness that the thought of reading a book about busyness is too much to bear! Well this book is well worth the effort – it will not increase your guilt and the chapters are short enough to read on the bus to work.

Most of us feel busy and many of us complain about busyness and find ourselves dragged down by it. Somehow, that longed-for lie-in or week at the beach fails to re-energise us as we’d hoped it might. In this really helpful book, Tim Chester argues that most Christians feel their lives are over-full. They are not only busy, they have a busyness problem – and being a Christian with all the church activities added to work and family only seems to make matters worse.

What I found most helpful about this book is that Chester does not deal with the problem by telling us to do better – although there is a chapter on time management. His big point is that it’s not enough for us to drop activities or get more efficient in our use of time, we need to deal radically with the things that drive us. “We may feel enslaved by our busyness and our schedules. But at the root of that slavery are the lies of Satan … If we are to be set free, we must expose those lies and counter them with God’s Word. More important than managing our time is managing our hearts.” For some our busyness will be driven by the need to match up to others' expectations – for others by the fear that life will otherwise spiral out of control – or by an inability to face an overwhelming task. In every case, the glorious truth about God in Scripture counters and liberates. “More often than not, those who complain about their busyness are those who are not finding joy in God. And those who rejoice in God as their Saviour, Master, Provider, Refuge, Joy and Hope do not find their business a burden.”