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Confessions of a Recovering Busyness Addict

How God's Relentless Love Calmed My Chaotic Life
Fil Anderson | Outcomes, May/Jun 2006

Sometimes the only way to get a new life is by running your old one completely into the ground. Twenty years ago, that's what happened to me.

For years, I'd been hooked on approval and driven by an insatiable longing to make my mark as a spiritual leader. My life became a whirlwind of activity that garnered praise and admiration, yet bore unintended but horrific consequences. I became a player in the kingdom enterprise and lost myself along the way.

As I reflect on my life back then, I'm reminded of the tragic death of professional golfer Payne Stewart and the friends who died with him. Had I been watching as their plane taxied to the runway for takeoff, I would have without a doubt been impressed with the jet's sleekness and style. Looking up after takeoff, I would have commented on how nice it'd be to travel with such ease. I would also have been unaware that something was dreadfully wrong on the inside of that powerful aircraft.

Departing central Florida, the Learjet flew a ghostly journey halfway across the country, its windows iced over and its occupants apparently incapacitated, before spiraling nose first into a grassy field. Everyone aboard was killed.

This dreadful image serves well as a metaphor of my life 20 years ago. To the casual observer, my life appeared quite good. I was flying high. My work was highly commended, and it wasn't all for show. Good things were being accomplished.

But something was wrong inside me. My life—like the Learjet on autopilot—had become a ghostly journey, as I maintained a deadly course with a debilitated soul. My ability to see clearly had become nil, my family and friends' efforts to get me to change course were disregarded or denied, and my last bit of fuel was being exhausted. I was obsessed with helping others have the kind of relationship with God I'd never known.

The noise, busyness and hurry that marked my life had slowly but surely dulled my senses, leaving me deaf to God's caring voice and numb to God's loving touch. My life had become ripped apart by the relentlessly competing demands of my career and home, wife and children, friends and family, who persistently asked for more than I ever felt capable of giving.

My hopes for the future were haunted by the blunders in my past. My fretful yearning to get my life right was dogged by the nagging fear that it'd never happen, given the fact that I was hopelessly flawed.

Late at night, while my wife Lucie and our children slept, I'd lie awake fearing I'd come to the end of my rope. My despair was the by-product of the life I'd created for my family and myself. It hadn't emerged overnight. What finally came crashing down was the result of years of persistent striving. While attempting to enable others to encounter God, I'd succumbed to the power of my compulsions and illusions. The lifestyle that appeared to enhance my companionship with God had become instead a terrible threat.