Why is everyone always in such a hurry? I hear the sounds of cars racing through our neighborhood almost every day. It is as if they are on such a time constraint, that they have to kick into high gear the moment they are up and moving around.
Life seems to be rushing faster. The things that used to takes years now take months. Things that took months, take days. The things that I took a full day to accomplish are now expected within minutes, if not seconds.
When did we get so involved with life that instead of simply living it, we have to experience, record and then upload what we are doing?
It takes time to tell everyone in the world what you are eating for breakfast. I long for the days when I could sit and eat without thinking about what everyone else would say about the meal that I had made.
In addition to rushing about, we are spending what precious little time we have for ourselves watching Youtube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. Somehow, becoming immersed in video has become our downtime and way to relax.
The problem is, it really isn’t relaxing. The part of your brain involved with watching video is not the same part that is involved with reading, crafting or doing almost anything else at all. It isn’t meditative and it isn’t something that will build you up. It turns you into a giant receptive vessel.
You stop questioning the content and, instead, you simply take it in. Is that really what you want to do with your free time?
My husband and I used to spend many hours a week watching shows. It got so that we built our lives around it instead of living and watching an occasional show for enjoyment.
I don’t think we were different than most people.
When I became ill, we stopped watching for a while. I was simply physically unable to do so. When I got a bit better, we tried to watch our favorite shows, which we had recorded.
We were both surprised to find how mean-spirited the comedies were. The dramas were overblown and filled with unlikely scenarios.
More than anything, we discovered that the shows all had agendas. It wasn’t simply there for our enjoyment, it was there to slowly indoctrinate us into their way of thinking.
So, we stopped watching television. We found that there was so much more to do with life, even though I was still confined to the house.
At this point, we spend about half of an hour, twice a day, with the television turned on to crafting stations. That is the time when I need distraction from the lung exercises that I do. Once the exercise is done, the television goes off.
Still, we don’t seem to have much time. We talked recently with some Christians and we all agreed that one of the hardest things for us to do is to find time, on a daily basis, to read the Bible.
Are we all really that busy? Or are we falling into the worldly trap of doing anything at all before we find time to spend with God?
I admit that parents with children are probably really, really busy. Those who parent and have full time jobs are even busier still.
But that still leaves the rest of us. We try to find excuses but, in our hearts, we know that we are making ourselves too busy.
I wonder if that is because we really don’t want to know what God thinks about how we are living day to day? Maybe there are some things we are doing that we just want to do even if we know that they are either questionable or downright sinful.
So, we go daily manufacturing so much to do that we can’t spend ten minutes reading the Bible. Funny, though, we can find a couple of hours a week to watch a good movie. We can find hours and hours to scroll through Instagram or Facebook. We can go to gyms, go shopping, spend time with friends, go out to eat, have a few drinks with friends after work.
Think of what you do on a weekly basis. Can you justify, truly, everything that you do? Could you maybe squeak in a few minutes a day to spend time reading about the wonders of heaven?
Once you start making your time with God the most important part of your day and the thing that does not get put off, you will start living differently.
Even so, it’s still easy to get off track. When that happens, ask God to help you put your life back in proper perspective and to help you spend your time doing things that will build you up.
It’s so much better to do that than to run around like crazy, speeding through life without actually living it to its fullest. That is, living the life that God wants for you. The life he has planned for you is so much better than watching a movie, shopping, or anything else that you seem to think is more important.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.