Book Review: Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung

Crazy Busy Book Review

I haven’t really written any book reviews before, but when I came across this book and read it within 2 days, I really wanted to be able to tell others about it and encourage everyone to give this book a shot. Besides, who can’t relate to being crazy busy in our culture? That seems to be the number one answer when you ask someone how it’s going…they tell you the famous word “busy.”

Kevin DeYoung does a great job in making a book about being crazy busy short and concise. It’s barely over 100 pages which is a major win in my book (no pun intended). Another plus is that he doesn’t claim to have all the answers and as you read through the book, you can tell he is processing just as much as you in learning how not to be so crazy busy. He comes across humbling, humorous, and convicting all at the same time. Maybe that’s why this book is such an easy read. (You can purchase it here.)

There are 7 different diagnoses (hope I got that right) he walks you through in this book:

  • Manifestations of Pride
  • Trying to do What God Doesn’t Expect of You
  • Setting Priorities in Order to Serve Others
  • To Stop Freaking Out About Our Kids
  • How We Let The Screens Strangle Our Souls
  • That We Need to Rest Before We Breakdown
  • As We Suffer, We Shouldn’t Be Surprised

I slightly changed a word or two in the above diagnoses, but I think we can all relate to one area, if not multiple ones or all of them. Since I haven’t written many reviews before, I thought I could share some of the areas of the book that stood out to me instead of walking through each chapter. I hope you are encouraged by these and that you would consider reading this book!

We are here and there and everywhere. We are distracted. We are preoccupied. We can’t focus on the task in front of us. We don’t follow through. We don’t keep our commitments. We are so busy with a million pursuits that we don’t even notice the most important things slipping away.

When we are crazy busy, we put our souls at risk. The challenge is not merely to make a few bad habits go away. The challenge is to not let our spiritual lives slip away.

Busyness does not mean you are a faithful or fruitful Christian. It only means you are busy, just like everyone else.

Here’s the bottom line: of all the possible problems contributing to our busyness, it’s a pretty good bet that one of the most pervasive is pride.

Jesus knew the difference between urgent and important. He understood that all the good things he could do were not necessarily the things he ought to do.

Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It’s about effectively serving others in the ways I’m best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve.

The antidote to busyness of soul is not sloth and indifference. The antidote is rest, rhythm, death to pride, acceptance of our own finitude, and trust in the providence of God.

The book personally resonated with me because I am always busy. I seem to continuously be working through the tensions of being productive while following Christ vs being busy while depending on myself. His book has helped me in many ways thinking through practical steps I can take today and serves as a strong reminder to have the correct perspective on what life is all about…even through the smallest day to day activities.

At the end of the day, Kevin shares the one thing we must do which I don’t want to spoil it for you, but let’s just say it involves Jesus, the Bible, and Prayer. He is spot on with what we can do to counteract our busyness and what it means to be a follower of Christ in a crazy busy type of world.


Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung is available now on Paperback and through Kindle.

Questions: Do you seem to be crazy busy? Why do you suppose? What steps do you think you can take to help counteract your busyness? Please join the conversation and comment below.

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