When was the last time that you actually had time for you? Time with your family or friends? Time that mattered! Not just being in the same room as them but actually doing things together, or listening to someone's problem. You know your friend hasn't been himself lately, but you haven't taken the time to sit and hear what he has to say. Sitting and watching rugby with your friend is not really spending time with him because all your attention is on your team. Then you hear he's been arrested for embezzling company funds and you have no idea why!
Your child is becoming belligerent, but you don't have the time to find out if something is wrong, so you yell or punish in the hopes that this will make things better. Then you wonder why she's been expelled or her sudden weight gain turns out to be an unexpected pregnancy! How could this have happened? You're absolutely gob-smacked by this "sudden" turn of events.
When was the last time you lay on a blanket on the grass and tried to see what shapes are in the clouds? Or went for a leisurely walk with your spouse? Not a 10 kilometre jog, or a planned hike with a hiking club, just a stroll, holding hands, talking about your day, stopping to look at the scenery as you pass.
Is your Bible collecting dust from Monday through till Sunday morning when you give it a quick wipe and take it to church with you for the morning service. When was the last time (and no, I don't mean at Church) that you went to a quiet spot and spent some time with God? He may know all that you are doing, but he also wants to hear from you. Imagine how you would feel if your child was in your home, right under your nose, and never said a word to you, day after day. Nothing. Not one comment. Not even a hello or a smile. It would be pretty painful wouldn't it? Well that's pretty much how we treat God, even those of us who profess to be Christians!
Our lives are so busy with all kinds of stuff, I don't even need to list them because you know what they are! We often wonder why the days just seem to fly past, why Monday becomes Friday without seeming to have any other days in between. It's because we're busy!! But what is all this busy-ness achieving for us? We're more stressed than our grandparents were, we have all these labour saving devices which just give us more time to fill with other devices. Thank goodness modern medicine has improved the way it has, because we seem to have more and more people getting sick from stress related illnesses than ever before. It's amazing how we are quite prepared to throw handfuls of prescribed medication down our throats to alleviate these stress related illnesses, yet if we simply slowed down, took some time out, we could improve our health and reduce our medical expenses! Most of us will get old and find out that we have missed living because we've been so busy trying to make one!
Jesus tells us in Matthew 11v28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." Now we all know that Jesus was speaking of a spiritual rest, of allowing us to go to Him with our troubles and giving them into His care. We know that He is to be the Lord of our lives, and yet we persist in trying to do everything ourselves, we tell Him of our troubles but so seldom hand them over, convinced that we can take better care of them than He can. And so our cycle of busy-ness gets out of control, we have no time for us, no time for our families, no time for God. Being busy allows us to feel as though we have control of our lives, when in actual fact, we are not. Isn't it about time we listened to Jesus? By laying our burdens at His feet and trusting the Creator of the Universe to sort out our problems we can have rest and in His rest, we can finally be the people God wants us to be.
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