This is a time of year when I struggle a bit at work because it feels like my job turns in to nothing but people, especially groups of people. Now, I do understand that as an academic department chair my role is all about students, faculty, and alumni, but most of the time I spend only a part of my day with them. For me, that’s a good thing, since I am very much an introvert. I can enjoy people in small doses, and I do a fairly good job of dealing with people as required, but I desperately need alone time to rest and recharge. And at this time of the year, I find that alone time is hard to come by, as my days get filled with more conversations than usual as well as advisory board meetings, alumni events, leadership events, and other meetings with groups of people. And my evenings and weekends get invaded as well. I love commencement, but I spend the rest of the weekend trying to hide under a rock.

Of course, this is a season in my job. After commencement is over this weekend, I will have a few quiet months with very few students in my office, very few faculty in the halls, and very few meetings involving groups of people. The introvert will fully recover. However, one day as I was thinking of all of the things I wasn’t getting done during this busy people-filled season, I realized that one of the things going by the wayside a bit was my quiet time.

By quiet time, I mean two parts of my day. One is the time I spend on Bible reading and specific intercessory prayer. That has suffered some, but I’m fairly good at telling myself that I have to do my Bible reading and praying whether I feel like it or not. What suffers more is the time that spend alone with God with no specific agenda. The time to be still and know God. That time I tend to lose in the busy-ness and the crowds. I find myself forgetting to rest in God and trying to rest in books or computer games, which kind of works, but not nearly as well.

When I’m in one of these times, I find myself needing to go back to Christ’s example. We see Jesus slipping away from the crowds to be alone and pray (Matt. 14:13,23,  Mark 1:35 and Luke 9:18 are examples). I don’t know whether or not Jesus was an introvert  (I rather expect not), but I do know that as the Son of God he could handle things while here on earth that I cannot. So if he needed to get away from the crowds and spend time with God, why on earth am I trying to survive my crowds without doing the same?

The good news is that when I do take the time to step away and spend that time resting in communion with God, I cope with my crowds a lot better.

Photo by Josh Adamski on Unsplash