Inconsiderately Busy
G. Hedges, D. D. 1 Kings 20:40 And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said to him, So shall your judgment be… The parable which touched the heart of the discontented king was meant for us. We are anxious about too many things, and while we are busy here and there, lo, the principal thing is gone. We live in a hurrying age. We ask questions, and are in too much of a hurry to wait for an answer. In religious service from soul to soul nothing counts like personality. A Christ undertakes the reformation of a planet. It is a task to quail the stoutest heart, but He never hurries. His calm is ever unruffled. And when we come to think it over and count it up, we find that Jesus Christ did more work than any man who ever lived upon this earth. Science is not the enemy, but the ally of religion. Theologians are beginning to apply the methods of science to their department of knowledge. Beyond science and beyond theology is the heart of consecration for his fellow-man, which he who would do the work assigned him must have; without which, like the man who was "busy here and there," one will lose the whole object of his life. We ought, moreover, to see that the things that we do are worth the doing. The man in our story missed the relative importance of the things he had to do. What is the one thing we are to do above all others? To him who is busy in money-getting, to the lawyer, whose sole thought in this world is the law, to the doctor, who thinks little beyond his patients and their medicines, to each one wholly absorbed in his worldly occupation comes the voice while he is "busy here and there," and the man, like the king, is heavy and displeased. (G. Hedges, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it. WEB: As your servant was busy here and there, he was gone." The king of Israel said to him, "So your judgment shall be; yourself have decided it."