When Life Gets Busy
The school year has fully ramped up, as have my church ministries and I am once again in the "you want me to be out past 8:00 on a schoolnight?" season of life where sleep and coffee are both highly prized commodities.
It's not just me, either. Everyone I know seems to be more busy now than they were even a week ago. --Funny how everyone tends to get overwhelmingly busy at the same time, huh?
So, how do we handle this intense busy-ness? The natural tendency is to madly rush through each day, distracted by all the things that demand your focus, trying to keep it all straight in your mind and sort out what needs to be done first. --In short, we tend to run around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off.
To cope with the overload of demands on our time, energy, and mental focus, most of us look for ways to pare down the demands, getting rid of that which is not "urgent" or "necessary"
And for many of us, one of the first things to be pared down is time spent with God in prayer. Maybe we don't cut it out all together (although it is very common for the busy Christian to rush out the door, meaning to get their time with God in later on, and then forget altogether in the hustle and bustle of the day, waking up late the next morning only to repeat the cycle.) My temptation when overwhelmed by how much I have to do each day is to minimize or cut short my time with God. But as I was reminded in Pastor's sermon this morning, the busier we become, the more we need to pray.
Think about it.
When you feel you are taxed beyond your limits with the busyness of life, work, ministry, family, whatever puts pressure on your time, you can go to the omnipotent God who has no limitations, and who offers you His strength for each day.
Isaiah 26:3-4 is an oft-quoted verse, but have you ever stopped to consider the last part of verse 4?
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength."
Everlasting strength. strength that never ends, that never fails, that is never exhausted. Through God we have access to this strength. Ephesians 3:16 indicates that God does strengthen believers with His might.
So how do we access this strength? Look back at Isaiah 26:3
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee."
The way to access peace in the midst of our busy-ness is to stay our minds on the Lord --to talk with Him in prayer and to read about Him in His word. When we take the time to stay our minds on Him, He helps us trust in Him, and notice why the "perfect peace"-filled individual is trusting God -"for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength". Ephesians 3:14-19 also ties God's act of strengthening to closeness to and knowledge of God on the part of the believer.
So working backwards, to get God's strength, we must trust that it is everlasting- that it is enough (and more!) for our day. And if we trust that God's strength is greater than our own, we will take the time to seek His strength by staying our minds on Him.
In other words, you have to be willing to put aside what you think is urgent and take time for God, trusting Him to enable you to get everything accomplished in your day.
I think it was Martin Luther who remarked to a friend that he had so much to do that day, he had to spend an extra hour in prayer. --That's the mindset we need if we are to live our busy lives empowered by God's limitless strength.
"He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day"
-John Bunyan