The Emerging Struggle With Time

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”-Hebrews 10:24-25

I remember being told one time, “You know, Satan realized he couldn’t get believers to turn away from God so he decided to make us busy in order to distract us from what’s important.”

This same idea has been shared in different ways, but no matter how you have heard it, it is still a concept that holds true.

People are genuinely busy nowadays. In fact, I think, many of us take pride in announcing how busy we are. It shows we are capable of handling many different tasks and it shows that we are important, either because we have so many activities that we are requested at or because we have so many things we are responsible for.

I don’t know how many times, after being asked how I am, I have responded with “Busy, but good.” Then, afterwards I smack myself because I realize that is not a good answer.

I think we can all relate to this. The experiences where we sigh or take a deep breath from running around and point out how “busy” we have been when people ask us how we have been.

This is not how God planned it.

Despite what The Rolling Stones say, time is not on our side. Time is moving by ever so quickly and the busier we are, the more opportunities we miss to spend with each other and most importantly, God.

As we look at our calendars, can we say we have spent more time in prayer or reading the Scriptures as opposed to going to our kid's sporting event(s)? Can we say our kids have had opportunities to grow spiritually more than they have had extra-curricular activities? Can we say we have been able to slow down and enjoy some peaceful connection with Christ instead of running from one appointment to another, thinking about the next place we are headed to?

We can be busy, but we should never be so busy that we neglect the most important things in our life: Our relationships with God and each other.

I can count numerous times when parents have come to me after their kids graduated high school and shared how they wished they spent more time with their kid and/or had more spiritual discussions with them as they watched their child drift so far from their relationship with Christ.

I had a conversation with another youth pastor about the busy-ness of his kids. We talked about how we fear that kids and parents are so busy, they might miss out on growth spiritually because of their commitments to activities that mean nothing in the end.

We know the activities are important, but we also know they’re not more important than Jesus.

We see parents looking at their watches trying to figure out timing and their ability to get their tasks done and when it comes to their church experience, they’re too worn out to focus or go deeper.

This is not an attack on extra-curricular activities or working extra hours. This is an attack on Satan’s ploy to get us so busy that we forget the value of meeting together to worship. We lose the connection with other believers, growing and going deeper together. We get so busy that we miss opportunities to serve Jesus for His glory.

This is an attack on time.

We cannot control how time goes by, but we can control the value we place on it.

What are you doing with your time? What is consuming your everyday? What is hindering you from growing spiritually? What have you placed more value on than your time with Jesus and other believers?

What have you allowed to influence your life more than the One who gave you life?

May we rise up to take our time back in order for God to use us wisely, since we have struggled on our own to use time wisely.

QUESTION: Do you feel too busy? What can you let go of in order to grow closer with God?