Tonight our small group met. We've been talking (based on a teaching by Andy Stanley) about margins in our lives - the time, space, energy, emotion, etc. that we have left over - the resources we have available to dedicate to God, family, and all those things that SHOULD be our priority, but that seem to be squeezed out by daily life. The idea being that when we over-schedule, over-commit, over-do, we chip away at our margins - our reserve, our borders, our boundaries - until we're right at the edge of our max capacity. When we live without margins, we have no time; we have no energy; we have no patience; we have no mercy; our relationships with each other suffer; our relationship with God suffers.
The focus tonight was understanding inherent limitations on our time, and then taking the next step to surrender our time-management to God, and allow Him to lead and direct us with regards to how our time is spent. The key to prioritizing and utilizing our time to the fullest is to give God our time.
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33, NAS)
When we seek Him first, we are promised that all the other things we spend our time seeking after will be given to us. When we seek Him, we begin to know Him and to know His heart. We begin to understand His priorities, and we want those to be our priorities as well. When our priorities are in line with His, we will spend our time on those things that matter most. By spending time with Him and seeking to know His heart, we will inherently shift the way we spend our time, and we will begin to spend it in the best possible way on the things that matter most.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:6, KJV) This was one of the first verses I ever committed to memory, because it hung on a plaque on the wall in our house when I was a child. The more hectic life becomes, and the more craziness that comes my way, the more clearly this verse rings true. When we acknowledge Him and spend time with Him, He gives us direction and leads us where we should go. He will direct us as to how our time would best be spent.
As a group, tonight we put out a challenge to each other: to give God the first 15 minutes of each day for the next 2 weeks until we meet again. By giving Him the first portion of our day, we have the opportunity to set the course of our day, to invite Him into every moment and every circumstance, to turn it over to Him completely, and to get our hearts and minds focused on Him before anything else creeps in to steal our time and attention. I know 15 minutes isn't much, but if it is done with a right heart, I believe it can make a big difference - not only for all of the reasons I just mentioned, but also because when we honor God with our time and attention, and with a heart that is truly open to Him, I believe He is faithful to His Word and all that He promises for those who will diligently seek Him. In my own life, I have seen that when I am faithful to give my time to God, somehow my time I have remaining runs more smoothly, and I operate more efficiently than I otherwise would. Somehow, even when I think I don't have time for Him because I have so much else to do, if I give Him my time anyway, it seems that everything else still manages to get done. Interesting how that works. (Sorry, I got off on a tangent.)
I'm excited to see how the next few weeks go. I'm hoping that I am up to the challenge. It's so easy to compromise and give up those first few minutes of the day to so many other things that seem so pressing...like sleep??? or rushing to get the kids ready on time??? A few of us have decided to do a sort of self-guided Bible study to keep some accountability and some focus for those of us who may tend to struggle for one reason or another. We've decided to simply take a book of the Bible (we've chosen Mark) and start at the beginning. We'll go through it bit by bit, and share our thoughts and our understanding etc. I think this is going to be an awesome opportunity for us to grow closer to God, and for us to grow closer together. I'm very excited!
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