Finding Time

I am not very good at doing nothing, in order to feel like I have had a successful day I need to have accomplished a lot. I usually have a mental to-do list, and if that list isn’t completed at the end of the day then I feel like I can’t sit down in the evening and relax properly.

I have recently come to realise that my to-do list is never ending! It will never EVER end! The food shop will need to be done again next week, in a day or two there will be more laundry, at work tomorrow there will be more emails for me to answer, dinner needs to be cooked, the dog peed on the carpet again. I know it sound obvious that those day to day jobs will need to be done throughout my life, but I had never really considered how much my ability to ‘rest’ relied on ticking off that list. I’m setting myself up to fail!

That sense of accomplishment after a busy day, whether for you that is at work, home or both is kind of addictive. I’ve decided that I don’t want to live like this, allowing myself to rest only when I’ve done enough, or feeling guilty when I sit down with things still left to do. But I also don’t want to postpone deadlines, say no to that meeting or have a messy house.

I want to mention here that spending time with God very rarely appears on my list. It’s on my ‘I’ll-do-it-once-I-can-relax’ list, which is not a list that I tick off half as often.

I’m not a huge reader, but when I find a good book I’ll read it over and over. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer is one of those books and it speaks directly to this issue in me.

In the book John looks at how Jesus lived, In Mark 1 we hear about Jesus teaching, healing, and casting out demons until the early hours, then we are told that very early the next morning while it was still dark, Jesus left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. In Luke we are told that ‘Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed’, Luke mentions that Jesus went to his ‘quiet place’ nine times throughout his book. After being baptised Jesus was led into the desert and after fasting for forty days and forty nights was tempted by the devil – instead of being weakened by the wilderness and hunger, it was only after that spiritual strengthening of being alone and praying that he took on the devil.

The biggest thing that stands out to me is that Jesus knew he needed time alone with his father. Jesus!…. who is fully man but also fully God, still needed time alone with God. If the perfect son of God needed that, how much more do I need those times with God. I should be in the quiet place 24/7! Interestingly the book points out that in Luke’s gospel in particular, the busier and more in demand Jesus became, the more he withdrew to his quiet place to pray.

I feel so challenged by this, how arrogant am I to think that time alone with God is a reward for me when I have the time to spare? Spending time praying in the quiet place is something that should be at the top of my to-do list, it clearly was for Jesus. A busy life isn’t a bad thing, Jesus was busy. But my priorities are skewed, only when seeking out time alone with God can we truly be equipped to face what life throws at us. Making time to pray in the quiet place even when life is full to the brim, is what Jesus needed and demonstrated to us. I would love to say that every day I now spend time in the quiet place with God, but that would be a lie. I am trying and often failing to live with this new perspective. I hope this recent challenge that I have faced encourages you in some way.