which one is it?...

in order to treat your time as a gift from GOD we not only need a right plan but also a right perspective, a right way of looking at things with the right plan.

now in this matter of managing your time there are conflicting messages such as, “you need to work but you also need to rest.”  which one is it?  or, “you need to have goals and plans but you need to leave it all in GOD’s hands.”  which one is it?  or, “you need to be totally focused, put all your energy on one thing but you need to be flexible at the same time.”  and these conflicts can be confusing except GOD has designed us so that it’s both.  there is a balance of how HE works things. 

ecclesiastes 3.1 (niv) says, there is time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven.  GOD designed seasons in the way that HE works time.  you don’t always plant, you don’t always grow, you don’t always harvest.  there is a time for different things.  the same thing’s true in our lives.  there is a time for different things. 

so if i’m going to have the right perspective on my time then the key decision here is i will balance my life. 

realize that there are different seasons in your life.  someone has written “as a gift from GOD, time should be used playfully as well as energetically, big heartily and generously as well as carefully and thoughtfully, in people oriented as well as task oriented ways, with an eye to quality as well as quantity and a sense of wonder and adventure.”  that’s the balance of it. 

in the balance of work and rest you’re going to have to admit something about yourself.  you have to admit that there’s a love/hate relationship that most of us have with busyness.  we say on the one hand, i hate being so busy.  it’s terrible being so busy.”  we talk about it, we complain about it.  but there’s a part of us that loves busyness.  because busyness makes us feel important.  important people are busy people.  busy people are important people.  it makes us feel somehow that we are important.  and the love of that keeps us driving all the time when we don’t need to. 

the truth is, you’re important to GOD no matter if you’re busy or not.  you could have had the worst week in the world, you didn’t accomplish a thing this week but you’re just as important to GOD.  your importance doesn’t depend on your level of activity.  once you and i begin to realize that the grip of busyness can begin to be loosened in our lives.

the truth is busyness and laziness are just two ends of the spectrum.  the middle is using my time as a gift from GOD.  but on the end is using it for myself – business doing too much with my times: laziness, doing too little with my time.  but in both cases i’m selfishly using it just for me.  in the middle it’s a gift from GOD, used like HE says to use it.  i have to confess that in order to balance work and rest. 

just a thought from the front porch…