I he
ard someone recently say that the over-business in our culture is dangerously close to the “level of sinful”. We’re so busy doing activities we are neglecting what really matters.
When asked how someone is doing, many times the answer is one of two words: “busy” or “crazy”. Our overbooked and stretched out days are causing even the most disciplined people to throw up our arms in surrender to what we’ve created as a culture. It’s not natural or healthy to be maxed out.
As someone who probably needs to recover from squeezing out minutes, over booking, over extending, counting “activity” as accomplishment and whatever else you might add to the list of the crazi-ness of our culture, here are some thoughts: (these thoughts are geared toward people who consider themselves followers of Christ)
Questions to indicate if your schedule is a “sindule”.
- Are you committed to public/corporate worship with your family once a week?
- Are you able to use the gifts that God has given you to serve in and through the Body of Christ in a meaningful way?
- Are the “activities” you are engaging in supporting growing relationships or tearing them down?
- Is it balanced? Do eternal and Christ like desires for your life and for your family’s life carry the same weight in your calendar that sports, music, drama, jobs, and ten thousand other things do?
- Do you have at least at least 3 meals a week together, around the table?
- Do you have time carved out to seek the Lord and His priorities for your life on a daily basis?
- Would you say you are trying to “do more for your kids” or “be more for your kids?”
Jesus said to be “in the world, but not of it”. I want to build a culture in our home where following in Jesus’ steps is the priority. I want my kids to grow up saying, “No matter what else is on the weekend schedule, we’re getting up on Sunday for worship because that’s what we do” or “The school schedule says that we have a performance on Sunday morning, so I better let them know that I won’t be able to be there for that one.” And I want that kind of culture at our church. Relaxed, yet faithfully committed to Jesus and his priorities for our lives.
Jesus was never “hurried” and his priorities were always correct. That didn’t mean he was legalistic about one hour of worship a week or certain time for daily prayer; he was faithful to live in step with the Spirit and his Father. We need to pray for that kind of wisdom and strength.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Phil. 3:7-9