Everyone has said this, I have, you have, everyone. Whether it is nearing crunch time for a deadline at work, trying to clean the house after the kids have gone to bed, but before the next day when the parents visit, or trying to balance your career, family, personal health and social volunteerism...oh yeah....that faith, church thing too.
What gets cut out of your life?
See, the secret to having enough time is to whittle down the commitments you say "yes" to, and learn how to say "no" to those things that are not as important. But again, what gets a "no" in your life?
As a pastor who is also a people-pleaser I tend to fill my calendar up quickly with requests to attend a Bible study, preach at a training session, attend a meeting, plan an event, and I set aside time to be with my family. But inevitably, Friday comes and I haven't gotten half of my "to-do's" actually done, and I can't remember what I have done in my time. It's as though there is never enough time. You know the feeling...no matter what you do.
But a wise-man once taught me, "there is a perfect amount of time, no matter how humans have defined it. God made the earth to perfectly go around the sun, creating day and night, so time is a gift from God...not a burden that there is not enough of. So, what I'm telling you is...there is plenty of time, you are simply filling it with too much."
Have you ever thought about God creating the day perfectly? Scientifically, the earth is the perfect distance and rotates perfectly for life to exist, so why would the amount of light and dark be imperfect? We are supposed to get 7-10 hours of sleep, which is close to the amount of darkness there is...perfect?
Including myself, perhaps we need to simply say no to certain things. This might be the hardest thing for many people, as there are many, many, many good things to say yes to. But believe me, someone will take the slack. You can almost argue that people who are engaged in too many things are enablers of laziness in society. What's the old adage, "10% of the church does 90% of the work." I wonder if we intentionally let things slip through the cracks if our own work would be better done, and if more people would step up to serve and lead the church because there is a need.
Of course the problem becomes time again. People often do not fulfill leadership roles, or even consumer roles in churches because they are too busy with their jobs or their kids' sports or other activities that are important as well. But this argument could go two ways.
1) all of the people who typically say yes to church stuff, are usually very busy people, because they say yes to everything. This is not a good thing for them, and possibly not for the church body.
2) what is more important?
If there is a perfect amount of time and you do not have time to fill your spiritual needs, your social needs and your need to serve (all three I believe are things we crave and need to be healthy in our lives), then what is taking that time? What is not important, but we make important?
In the season of Lent, as we are to be refocusing ourselves on the death and resurrection of Christ, perhaps it's time we take a look at our time priorities.
Here's the challenge:
-print out your schedule for the month and add up the total number of hours you are engaged in certain activities.
-chances are, your job will dominate - that's expected
-what is second? How many hours is that compared to your job?
-where is anything faith/service related, percentage wise?
-how much of your schedule benefits someone else or even, benefits the world as a whole?
