Busy is the buzz word of the day. Talk to almost anyone and ask them how they are doing and you hear the answer, “busy.” It seems life is busier than ever. Our schedules are fuller, busier with more demands, more hoops through which to jump. Sometimes I want to yell, “Stop the merry-go-round and left me off.”
Yet, at a recent seminar by Valerie Burton on “How did I get so Busy” she refuted the myth that we are busier now than in the fifties. We actually have more vacation and free time than the average person had then. I was blown away. Because of all the conveniences, we can do our work faster and more efficiently than ever leaving us with more free time than our parents or grandparents.
It’s what we do with all that free time that makes us busier. We fill it with TV, Xbox, internet, hobbies, and other self-indulgent activities. The first thing to go is usually our service to God as if it is optional. .
Our relationship with God and service to His mission are normally scheduled around our job, sleep, family, friends, recreation and everything else. If there’s any time left we spend time with God and maybe do something for the mission.
But this is not the total commitment or radical sacrifice that Christ modeled.
We hopelessly try to “balance” our lives when Christ has called us to “center our lives.”
I have to tell you I’ve been a disciple for almost forty-seven years and this area has been the most difficult for me. Balance was what I was striving for and once I had it, all it took was a sickness, a time change, or unexpected emergency to throw it off,
As children we played “jump board.” You took a long board and put it on a platform of wood, balancing it so you and the other person could safely stand on either end. The one weighing the most would be close to the ground. The person up in the air would jump and it made the heavier person go up in the air. Then the person in the air would come down jumping on their end of the board causing the other person to fly into the air. What fun as long as the board stayed balanced. When it slid off balance we both ended up falling on our bottoms. It was difficult to keep the balance .
So, it is in life. Achieving balance is tricky and vulnerable. But being centered in Christ is a mindset that brings consistency. A disciple is centered not balanced. A disciple is radically committed, totally sold out, intensely focused on the mission; not what can I get out of this.
Are we ready to be so totally sold out and radically committed that we schedule everything and everyone around our relationship with God and our service to the Mission? .
No comments:
Post a Comment