Work, Rest and Play
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 03 Aug 2008 in From Steve's Study ::
An article in the Herald caught my eye a few weeks ago. The writer was bent on self-improvement and so tried to find out how many new things he could do in a limited time. On searching the Internet, he found that in just an hour a day he could become fit & rich, learn the violin, have a working knowledge of Hungarian, change the world & radically lower his blood pressure. However, an hour seemed like a long time when you put all these together, so he tried for 10 minutes a day and found he could: read War And Peace, learn conversational Italian and become a pole dancer. Five minutes a day was even better; in that time-frame he could develop a beautiful bust-line and become closer to God.
On reflection, he realised that to do all these things would require some 73 hours a day of constant activity, not including sleep, work or eating. It seems there simply are not enough hours in the day!
We can easily empathise with his problem. Our lives are so full of things we have to do that we can never find time for the things we want to do, let alone the things we should do! And Christians are certainly not immune to this problem – indeed we can suffer more than most as we can become burdened by the need to be a good worker, husband, wife, parent, friend, team-mate and Christian.
Is it possible to get correct balance in our lives?
There is, of course no easy answer to this question, however the writer of Ecclesiastes assures us, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (Ecc 3:1). This does not mean we can do everything however (as our journalist friend discovered), priorities will have to be set and some things will have to be let go.
I think one of the reasons we struggle so much to fit in all we have to do is that we have been taken in by the world’s claims that we can and must do everything. It is so hard for us to say “no”. We bring our kids up the same way, wanting them to have “every opportunity” we deny them nothing, and so their lives are just as full as ours.
There is time to do the things we should be doing. Our struggle is to work out what is important and to let go of the things that simply “fill” our lives. As Christians, our first priority should always be our relationship with God – nothing should stand in the way of our growth in our knowledge and love of him. All other priorities will flow from this relationship and so it is vital it is set right. Indeed, as Jesus said, “Seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33).
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