I began a series last week on busy-ness – not only are we all busy but we seem to honor it. To busy-ness be the glory. You can catch it here if you missed it.
Not only do we glorify busy-ness but we make excuses for how we feel about being so busy. Consider this hypothetical situation with me – we see a friend while waiting in line for dinner at Chick-fil-a. A conversation ensues...
“Hey, how are you?!?”
“Good, but I'm tired. This morning I had to drop the kids off at daycare and the older ones at school. Then I sat in traffic for 20 minutes trying to get to work. At work, everyone wanted everything yesterday! After work I had to pick up Megan and take her to dance class. Right now I'm grabbing some dinner before I go back to pick her up. We'll go home, eat, and I'll try to get some laundry done before bed.”
I know we’re tired; I get it because we’ve all been there. But after those first four words, the rest of that is a list of excuses for being tired – justification for being busy 24/7. We know something is out of balance in our lives but rather than make a change, we make excuses.
Why?
We make excuses for why something will never be perfect – such as our schedules – rather than take steps to make a change. We have to choose to deny the excuses. Conquer them. Don't give them room in our lives.
This isn’t a matter of positive thinking; the cup is half full instead of half empty kind of stuff. This is about making wise choices to take steps and see a change.
Sometimes these changes are easier said than done, however. What are some steps to help bring about change?
Understand God’s truth
God’s Word doesn’t spell out the answer to every decision. It does, however, give specific life principles that help us make wise decisions. Here are a few of God’s truths that can help us prioritize our activities.
o Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
o Love your neighbor as yourself.
o God loves you and desires an intimate relationship with you.
o You have power to persevere through a difficult time.
Understand God’s provision
If God calls you to do something, He will provide what you need to do it. He’ll provide the finances, energy, knowledge, training, nerve, time, or whatever it is to accomplish the job. “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
Don’t try to be perfect
It’s not up to you to get everything done. You only need to accomplish what God calls you to do. Nothing more, nothing less. We’re going to talk about this one more next week.
Know where to start
Concrete changes are easier to make than conceptual ones. It’s easy to say, “I need to cut something out and make more time in my life.” But this doesn’t lead to real change. Instead, think of a specific change with a doable plan of action to accomplish it. An example might be, “I’m going to pray every day about which activity I could cut out of our schedule until God shows me something.”
No Excuses / No Regrets
Excuses now become regrets later. Author James Rubart writes, “Regret is about looking back. If we’re constantly looking back, we won’t be able to see what God is bringing ahead of us.” The excuses we make now keep us from living in the moment God has designed for us. Eventually, we look back at the excuses and realize we could have experienced so much more. And we regret it.
“No excuses” is so important to us at Grow Barefoot that it’s the third tenet of our ministry. I wrote on this blog months ago, “To us, it's more than a catchy slogan – it's a lifestyle choice. We actively choose to live free from slavery to sin and free from the rules of man-made religion. We actively choose to pursue a life of obedience to God's Word in order to honor Him. Finally, we actively choose to do what He wants us to do without offering excuses for why we can't. A key purpose of our ministry is to help you do the same.”
Make an excuse or make a change. It's your choice.
Continue on in the series –
No excuses. They're so easy. And yet facing the truth--that letting go of excuses is freedom--is what we need, I need. And what I will continue to press into. Excellent post.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jim. Yes, it's definitely a struggle for all of us. Satan can keep us so busy; so focused on the excuses that truth and freedom are continually out of our reach.
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