By C.C Simpson
Look at your calendar. Odds are it is already full. Back-to-back meetings, unanswered messages, three things you meant to finish last week. From the outside, your life looks productive. Maybe even impressive. But a full calendar can sit on top of an empty man or woman because motion has a way of hiding what is happening underneath it.
In the Bible, we find the antithesis of this: Jesus Christ draws a hard line through all that noise. He warns first about a thief: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” Then He plants His flag on the other side: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
The thief in John 10 is not a metaphor. He is the enemy of the flock and has always worked to rob God’s people of what Jesus, the Shepherd died, to give them. The enemy rarely comes at a leader through scandal. He comes through the schedule. Busyness looks like diligence, so we welcome it in, and it does the thief’s work on us: stealing presence, killing joy, wearing down the discernment a leader needs most.
That is why an abundant life cannot be measured by how packed your week is. Jesus ties it to Himself, to fellowship with the Father, to work that actually goes somewhere. Busyness is easy to manufacture. I have done that more times than I want to admit, filling a day so the motion could pass for meaning. But meaning takes surrender. It asks who you are serving and why He entrusted you with influence.
Here is the part we do not like to admit. A lot of our motion is defensive. We stay busy to avoid stillness, to outrun a dissatisfaction we cannot name, to prop up a worth that feels shaky when the activity stops. When the running becomes compulsive, clarity is the first thing to go. And a leader who loses clarity starts making noise and calling it progress.
When Christ sits at the centre of your life, everything downstream changes. At home, you are present with the people in front of you, not skimming them on your way to tomorrow’s problems. At work, you handle what you have been given as it belongs to Him, because it does. The tasks stay ordinary. Emails, budgets, and a hard conversation you have been avoiding. Aligned with His purposes, that ordinary work carries weight that outlasts the quarter.
The marketplace exposes the difference fast. A leader driven by urgency builds a culture of exhaustion without meaning to do so. Decisions made on the run multiply activity and thin out purpose. Give it enough time, and joy erodes, discernment dulls, and work becomes something the team just endures. The life drains out of the room.
Abundant life interrupts that drift, and it starts with the leader before it ever touches the organisation. When your worth stops riding on your output, you can finally move on purpose. You decide from conviction. You rest on Sunday without guilt gnawing at you, because Someone already determined what you are worth.
So, before you dive into the week, sit with the two halves of the verse above. The thief is real, and in a leader’s life, he often works through the disguise of an overfull week. But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, laid down His life so you could have more than a crowded calendar. Receive that life from Him, and carry it into every room He sends you, quietly and steadily, until the people around you notice the difference.
© 2026. C.C. Simpson is dedicated to fostering a bold and triumphant Christian faith within the global marketplace. Before becoming President of CBMC International, Chris dedicated 28 years to a distinguished career in the public sector – as a Commanding Officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, and serving in the U. S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting seven American presidents and leading elite teams in complex, high-stakes international missions. With his wife Ana, Chris resides in Boca Raton, Florida.
Reflection/Discussion Questions
- Where is your spiritual enemy currently working through busyness to rob you? Name the specific thing being stolen right now: presence at home, joy in the work, or the discernment you need to lead well?
- Jesus said He came so you could have life abundantly. Be honest about the gap. What have you been chasing, striving to gain through activity, that only Jesus Christ can actually give you?
- The devotional says abundant life reorders the leader before it reshapes the organisation. Name one decision this week you have been driving with urgency. What would change if you slowed down and decided from conviction rather than a sense of urgency?
- Devotional writer Oswald Chambers said, “Good is the enemy of the best.” What do you think that means? Does our motion – our busyness – seem good even though it is keeping us from the best?
NOTE: If you have a Bible and would like to read more, consider the following passages:
Psalm 46:10
Matthew 11:28-30
Luke 10:41-4
John 10:1–11
Colossians 3:23
Challenge for the Week
Before you touch your calendar each morning this week, sit still for five minutes with John 10:10 and meditate on what Jesus was teaching. Read both halves out loud: the thief who comes to steal, and the Christ Who came to give abundant life. Then ask one question before you plan the day: Is this activity serving God’s purpose, or only outrunning my own restlessness?
Eliminate one thing from your week that is pure motion, and give that reclaimed time to a person, to prayer, or to rest. Watch what fills the space.