Restoring Balance to our Hurried Lives.
ISAIAH 40: 27-31.
Job 3:26. I have no peace! I have no quiet! I have no rest! And trouble keeps coming!
1. What happens when I put a little time/ balance in my life?
A. It gives one peace of mind in our lives.
B. It means that I’d have Better health.
C. It develops stronger relationships.
D. It allows us to be available for God purpose.
II. Steps to building time/balance in our lives.
A. Accept that I have limitations.
Psalm 119:96. I have learned that everything has limits.
Job 14:5. Our time is limited. You (God) have given us only so many months to live and have set limits we cannot go beyond.
B. There is no such thing as a problem free life.
John 16:33. In this world you will have trouble.
Proverbs 22:3. A prudent person foresees difficulties ahead and takes precautions: the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.
C. I am the only one who can put time/space in my schedule.
Eccl. 10:15. Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work.
D. There will be times when I will need to prune my activities on a regular basis.
1 Corinthians 6:12. Everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial.
E. I must learn to do less and trust in the Lord more.
2 Corinthians 1:8-9. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally not a bad idea since He’s the God who raises the dead!
Restoring Time/Balance to our Hurried Lives.
ISAIAH 40: 27-31.
Part 2
When Barbara and I were developing our relationship we wrote a lot of letters and we talked a couple of times a month. I believe that we were able to develop our long distance relationship because we communicated with each other by mail and phone. I will admit that we did more communicating by mail that we did by phone because our phone call had to be organized. My position required that I word shift work which meant that on some days I would be working all night and sleeping during the day. So if I wanted to talk to her we would have to pick a night and a time when we would be available. Even though we wrote letters I believe that the talking times were some of the best we had at that stage in our relationship. I don’t know of anyone who wouldn’t want to get a love letter. Well on a Thursday morning John woke early to find that someone had sent him a love letter on his computer! And since he got up early and hadn’t heard the word yet and since it was a love letters, he opened it! It instantly infected every file on his computer and his computer started sending it out to bunch of other people. John found out that the love letter was a virus, one of the fastest viruses in history. This virus not only went from Asia to Europe to America in four hours it also shut down the parliaments of England, the House of Representatives and a lot of corporations. It replicated itself so quickly the systems went on overload and as a result they crashed. We live in a world where a lot of people are on overload and they’re about ready to crash. It has been said that North Americans thrive on working crazy hours, fast food and high tech energy. If you think about that statement for a moment the question that comes to mind is if people are thriving on that formula why are companies’ struggles with so many of their employee being off work because of stress?
A report that came out a few years ago stated that the price of prosperity today is only achieved by working harder and longer than ever before. If we follow that concept we will see by the following stats what the cost is for us to achieve prosperity. We would loose 2½ hours of sleep less than people did a hundred years ago. The average workweek would be longer than it was in the 1960s. People today are actually working longer hours than we did in the 60s. Today the average office worker has 36 hours of work piled up on their desk and it takes at least three hour every week to sort through it and find what the need is. We give eight months of our lives just to and opening junk mail. We use up two years of our lives playing phone tag with people who are busy or who are not answering and we give five years of our life waiting for people who are doing too much and are late for meetings. We live in a society where we are always dealing with feelings of being rushed, late for meetings and we can’t seem to understand why we are exhausted. Job 3:26 I have no peace. I have no quiet. I have no rest and trouble keeps coming.
Sociologists have said there is just too much change, too many choices, too much work and too much debt going on. We now have a new mental illness called nophomolia (Very likely didn’t spell this right). This phobia come from thinking that you have to be talking on your mobile phone every second and if you are not then you have nophomoliba.
If a person is homeless we direct them to a shelter. If a person needs food then we tell them to go to the food bank. If they’re having a medical problem we suggest that they see a doctor but if a person life is so busy that it doesn’t have any spare time in it we give that person one more thing to do. Today having no spare time/balance in our lives is being thirty minutes late to the doctor’s office because you were twenty minutes late getting out of the hairdresser because you were ten minutes late leaving the restaurant because the car ran out of gas two blocks from a gas station and you forgot your purse. That’s having no spare time/balance.
1. What happens when I put a little time/ balance in my life?
A. It gives one peace of mind in our lives; because I'm not hurrying and worrying all the time. I have time to stop, to think, to relax, to enjoy and to smell the roses.
B. It means that I’d have Better health. It is a proven fact that stress if it isn’t dealt with will harms our bodies. Yet people still to try to deal with the stress while still trying to keep in that fast pace lifestyle. It is sad to say but for many people the only time they get any balance in their lives is when their body shut down and they have to take time off. The truth is our body needs downtime in order to heal. Think about a NASCAR race. The car involved in the race makes pit stop in order to get fuel for the car, to allow the drive to get some food and if needed to make repaired. You can’t fix a broken race car if the driver refuses to make a pit stop. The other thing is that that car will never finish the race. Yet we try to be repaired our physical and emotional bodies while we’re still racing through life. Balance builds in the time for better health.
C. It develops stronger relationships. There are a lot of reasons for the collapse of relationship and it doesn’t matter whether they are family relationship or relationship with friends and neighbor. One of the reasons offered is that people have drifted apart because they just didn’t have the time to build a relationship. Any relationships take time to develop and if there isn’t any balance that provides the time to sit and talk then the relationship just won’t become everything they should. Having balance provides the time to listen, the time to comfort someone who needs to be comforted, it provides time just to enjoy people and to play with your kids.
D. It allows us to be available for God purpose.
It only when we are available to God that we can make a difference in this world. When we’re overloaded, when we’ve got too much to do that is when we are only thinking of ourselves. When a person gets overloaded a lot of times they go into survival mode. That is when the Lord will tap you on the shoulder and say I’d like you to do this. When that happens our first response isn’t joy because all we see is that we have another thing to do! The only difference is that it is the Lord who is asking. Our response is Lord I’d like to do that but I'm sorry, I'm just too busy. What happen is that we up resenting the fact we missed this great opportunity the Lord brought into our lives and we couldn’t do it because we had no balance. But when you have balance you’re available for God to use.
II. STEPS TO BUILDING TIME/BALANCE IN OUR LIVES.
A. Accept that I have limitations.
When I had the surgery on my foot the doctor told me that there were some things that I couldn’t do. Now if you know me that is something that is very difficult for me. It is the same way in order to start building some balance into our lives. We’ve got to recognize that as a human we have limits. Now that is the easy part the hard part is for us to accept our own personal limitations.
Psalm 119:96. I have learned that everything has limits. We are not invincible. We are just human beings. But more than that we have to remember that the limitations in our lives were put there by God intentionally. God is the author of your limitations and they are there for our good. He did it because He loves you. So rather than fighting our limits we need to accept our limits. Now I don’t know about you but this is one area where I know I will have a struggle with. In fact I am struggling with it some now because unfortunately we’re not very adept at recognizing our limits. In fact, we constantly overestimate our abilities and underestimate the problems and how much time it will take. I do this all the time. And I always overestimate my ability to get it done and I always underestimate how much time it’s going to take. Instead of five minutes it takes 35 minutes. On top of that we live in a culture that is constantly tells us we can do it all, we can have it all, we can be it all and you can have it all! The truth is, that’s a lie. You can go to all the self-help seminars that you want to but you cannot be whatever you want to be. You can be all that God wants you to be but you cannot be whatever you want to be. No matter how much I want to I ‘ll never going to be able to sing like Jim Reeves. You can only be what God made you to be. The Lord placed physical limits on our bodies. You couldn’t swim to Hawaii no matter how much positive thinking you did. You can’t go six months without food no matter how much you talk yourself into it.
I know that people will say what about that verse in the Bible that says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Don’t take that verse out of context. Can you fly? Of course you cannot fly. That verse is not saying that you can go beyond your human limits. I have often wondered if maybe Christians have used that verse to think, I can handle it all because I will never collapse because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That is a misuse of that verse because every person has physical limitations and you also have emotional limitations. We may know our physical limits. For instance, if I were to say to you will you carry this 10 lbs. bag of potatoes to the kitchen? We all would say no problem. Now if I were to ask you to carry two 100lb bag at once to the kitchen you would probably give me a funny look wondering why I had ask you to do such a stupid thing.
But what about emotionally? How many people can you carry emotionally? We probably never thought about that. How many problems of other people can you handle at once? At what point do you say Wait I can’t handle this? Many people have never drawn the line emotionally. They think they can keep on handling more stress, more problems and they don’t need any downtime.
Scientists are now discovering that the human mind can only handle so much new information at one time before it goes on tilt! The problem is we live in a culture everywhere you go there is new information. I listened to one of the CEO of the internet who was saying that what they were going to unveil would be old within two months. It is no wonder that most people today are mentally on tilt. They can’t handle any more. There are scientists today who are studying the mind to see how damage are we causing our minds by trying to cram in all this extra stuff. Think about this for a moment. Years ago we had phones that would receive and send calls. Today we have phones that can start your car, turn on your lights and a hundred and one other things. To me all I want a phone for is to receive calls and make calls. No matter how many time management seminars you go to that will try to teach us how to plan our days we need to realize that we’re never going to have more than 24 hours in a day and you have to use part of that day to sleep.
Job 14:5 “Our time is limited. You, God, have given us only so many months to live and have set limits we cannot go beyond.
Now maybe you are thinking that it is the Lord task to let us know when we’re reaching our limit. Maybe the Lord could put a little red flashing light in my brain or a beeper would go off, Warning! Ninety-five percent! You’re about to go on overload! Back off! Wouldn’t that be great if you had a little warning light like that you’re at your limit or you’re over the limit.
The thing is the Lord has actually given us some warning lights and they are called pain, fatigue and stress just to name a few. If you are irritable all the time, every day then I would suggest that you are on overload that you have exceeded a limit. The thing is it doesn’t matter if it is a physical, mental, spiritual, some kind of an emotional limit but the main thing is you are on overload.
B. There is no such thing as a problem free life.
One of the reasons why we need balance is because we will have problems in our life. If you feel that you have to have everything in your life to go exactly as you have planned it then I would suggest that you already have way too much going on in your life. Listen to me; no matter how much we want life to be our way I want you to realize that nothing ever goes as planned. Now don’t misunderstand me there is nothing wrong with having plans. In fact the Bible says we ought to plan because plans help to give us guidance to go in the right direction. John 16:33 “In the world you will have trouble. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, You might have trouble. He doesn’t say You could have trouble. Jesus said You’re going to have trouble. We assume that everything’s going to be just great so when the unexpected happen we get upset. There is an old saying Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
Proverbs 22:3. The prudent person perceives difficulties ahead and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.
C. I am the only one who can put time/space in my schedule.
You can’t hope for the time in your schedule or pray for the time in your schedule or expect somebody else to provide the time in your schedule. We’re going to have to decide to put some time in our schedule. We’re going to have to decide to make sure that we build some clear time zones into our lives so we can have some downtime. That means we leave on purpose some empty area in our lives where we actually don’t have or want anything else put in that time. Here is a principle for you to remember. The more thing we have going on in our lives the more time we will need. Listen to what the Bible about subject. Ecclesiastes 10:15. Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work.
We may not like the way the Bible just cuts through everything and is very honest with us about the struggles we have but sometime that is what we need to hear. It reminds me of the story of the guy who comes home and his daughter asked him why he’s working so hard and why he has to always bring work home. He looked at her and said I just don’t get it finished at work so I need to bring it home and get it done. The daughter looks up at him and says, Daddy, I think they should put you in the slower group. If you are always bring work home with you that is a very good sign that you are already overloaded and you are headed for trouble.
For some reason we feel that we have to keep every moment of everyday busy? We are supposed to be on a journey and for some reason we think that we have to turn it into a race. That is why we miss so much of life. If I really want my life to last I’ve got to realize that the whole journey of my life is ahead of me. I’ve got to remember it’s not how fast I live that’s important. It’s how well I live.
D. There will be times when I will need to prune my activities on a regular basis.
John 15:1ff
When we were in Ontario we pastored in the apple growing region. Every spring the growers would begin their pruning.
I asked one of the men about the pruning and he told me that if they prune the trees they would have a better harvest that the pruning would make the plant healthier and it would ensure a better fruitfulness in the next season. No pruning would mean that the plant would basically become of no value.
Every year of our lives we sprout new activity branches. You’re doing some things now that you didn’t do a year ago. I want to you to think about that shopping basket illustration that I used in the first message. Here I am in the store trying to pick up some more stuff and I am trying to do that without putting one or two of the items that I have in my hand down. Now as we think about that for moment I am sure that as we look at our lives that we have probably added something to our life since last year. The question is what have we cut out? We need to understand that we can’t just keep adding and adding to our schedule. Please let me restate that. We can keep adding to our already busy lives but in so doing we need to be prepared to pay the price. Here’s the secret. When those apple growers were pruning their trees they just didn’t cut off deadwood. They also cut off living branches that are still productive, still fruitful. When we are doing the pruning in our lives we’re going to have to cut out some activities that are still producing in your life, that are still good, that are still bearing fruit. You have to cut them off because you’re in a new season.
1 Corinthians 6:12. Everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial. Here is what Paul is saying. The Lord has given us free will and we can if we so decide go out and do anything. Now if you do this you must keep in mind that the Lord isn’t going to send Michael down to stop you. You are permitted to totally make wrong decisions and we need to realize that when we make those decision that they will be made in a way that will be totally beneficial to our life.
In my last message I shared with you that we have to use the word No. Tomorrow you get up and you’ve got fifty things to do in one day and you’re only going to get twenty of them done, that means you’re going to have to say “No” thirty times.
In your life you will have to learn to say “No”, far more than you’ll have to learn to say “Yes”. There are far more things you can’t do than you have the time, energy, effort and God’s desire for you to do. It’s easy to say “No” to things you don’t like or to things that are unpleasant. The real problem is saying “No” to things you like. Saying “No” to things that are fun, or good or beneficial or helpful. You cannot even do all the good things in life. You can’t do everything so you have to determine what does God want me to do? If you want an effective life I can summarize it in one word: selection. Selection is the key to an effective life. You’ll be more effective if you figure out what you’re not going to do as well as what you’re going to do. What I'm saying to you is you’ll actually accomplish more in life by doing less. You will accomplish more by being totally committed to two or three things that really matter compared to being half-committed to a dozen or two dozen different things. If you don't periodically prune the activities in your life and I mean like every couple of months, God will do the pruning for you. It will happen through an illness or crisis or something because you cannot live beyond your limits month after month.
Proverbs 20:30. Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.
E. I must learn to do less and trust in the Lord more.
I should learn to trust the Lord more because God can do more in twenty minutes than you can do in twenty years. God can do it a whole lot faster and a whole lot better than you can do it. About the only benefit of being stretched and being on overload is that it forces you to trust God. It brings you to your knees when you realize you’re up against the wall, out of steam and out of energy.
2 Corinthians 1:8-9. We were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally, not a bad idea since He’s the God who raises the dead.
God can do what you can’t do. Jesus did not say, “If you’re busy you can move mountains.” He didn’t say busyness is the way to move a mountain. He didn’t say, “If you work real hard and really gets stressed you can move a mountain.” He didn’t say, “If it’s to be it’s up to me to move a mountain.” He said, “If you have faith you can move mountains.” Faith not busyness is what gets the job done. So what’s your mountain? What’s the problem in your life that needs moving? Stop doing so much! Do less and trust God more.
