In a society that worships productivity and a church that values the tireless servant it is easy to find yourself entirely too busy. The spirit of busyness hails from a place of darkness that would keep you so consumed with the demands of life you have no time to spend in God’s Word or prayer, much less effectively pursuing His call. The spirit of busyness has a distinct purpose: to thwart you from doing God’s purpose and walking in His anointing.
It takes time to time to develop an attuned ear to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. The weekly schedule requires a healthy margin of unscheduled time to follow the detour of spontaneous ministry, especially ministry to your own family. When we are loaded down with a swamped schedule, often our own families suffer the greatest from our lack of ministry. Family tends to get the dregs of life.
Food for thought:
- Do you better tolerate the inconvenience of helping a friend than your own family member?
- On that Family Time Chart, do you have a line dedicated to rest? How much time in your schedule have you set aside and protect for family rest? Nothing scheduled. No commitments.
Does it sound sacrilegious to you? Wasteful when the world needs saving? Actually, those are both lies from the spirit of Busyness. In contrast, God insisted we need at least 15% of our week dedicated to restorative rest.
Let’s not allow arrogance to mislead us nor Busyness deceive us. We need our rest. Our families need rest. If we want to do family God’s way, ministering to them in spirit and in truth we will want to remove “busy” from our schedules. Build into your schedule a margin of time for rest and being quiet before the Lord. Then encourage them to do it as well.
Personally, I like to have a minimum of 20% of my week free. Free to pursue daily time in the Word. Free to pursue my family. Free to bring dinner to a friend who needs a break. Time to encourage someone over a cup of coffee. Personally, I believe I am more able to lead, minister and disciple when I am not racing from one appointment to the next.
Take a look at your time this week and do a few calculations on your phone. If you get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep at night -no that’s not crazy- how much unscheduled time do you have left per day? Per week? What about your family? What adjustments do you need to make to your Family Time Chart?
Read Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 35:2, Mark 2:23-28, Hebrews 4:1-13, Psalm 46:10
Psalm 46:10, Hebrews 4:11
Lord, thank you for inviting us into your rest. You have provided physical rest for our time and spiritual and mental rest from our burdens. Guide our family in your ways like how to ” Be still, and know that [You] are God.” Keep me from being legalistic, but rather helping my family to hear your voice and “strive to enter [Your] rest.”