If you do any activity for 1 hour a day, at the end of the year you will have spent 15.2 days engaged in that activity. Assuming you actually get 8 hours of sleep at night, that comes out to 22.8 days of your awake life. That means, if I spend 4 hours a day in my kitchen (cooking and cleaning) by the end of the year, I will have spent 91.25 days (waking hours) in the kitchen. That’s about 3 months of my life! No wonder I get tired of it at times.
However, what if that time spent is on something a bit less productive? Say, watching TV, shopping at garage sales or organizing my closet? It’s still about 3 months’ worth of my waking hours.
As I contemplate making much of Jesus and less to-do about me this year, I intend to examine how I spend my time. I mean, if I have time to spend on above said activities or some other addition to my day besides the basics that are necessary for living, don’t I have time for God? For His word? For Prayer?
Rare is the season when I have had absolutely NO time that is flexible. If I’m being honest. (I’m thinking about all that time I spent scrapbooking and stamping when my kids were young).
Currently, TV and movies are something that tug me away from the important things. I love a good story and pause for one whenever I get a chance. It tends to be my fall back when I am stressed, bored or tired. I default toward that instead of spending time with God to find comfort and relief.
My thinking goes something like this: I deserve a break. When else am I going to have “me time”? I just want to have a bit of fun? I. I. I.
God knows our body needs rest. He knows our hearts need rest from the stress of life. He gives us His solution in Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
But I ignore His offer more than I care to admit. So in 2016, I’m focusing on going to HIM more than this, that or the other that calls out to me with promises of relief. Because, truth be told, hours spent on an activity with no eternal value, leaves me drained more often than not.
That’s not to say that recreation is necessarily bad. I’m just saying that I need to examine where I spend my time and not just go one place or the other on a default mode. I believe God wants me to be intentional about my choices of where I spend my time.
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And honestly, I would much rather look back and realize that I spent 3 months of my year with God instead of in front of the TV!
How do you spend your flexible time? What do you do when you want relief from stress? Are any of those things robbing you of time you could spend with God?
