From Chaos to Calm

Who depends on you? What are your responsibilities? How many items are on your to-do list for the week?

Overwhelmed yet? The jumble that makes up your daily life can cause incredible chaos. This doesn't even factor in the biggies that occur:  loss of health, relationships, job, or home; fear, either real or imagined; worry about, well, everything.

How can we manage an overloaded life so there are pockets of calm?

Proactive Steps:

• Pare down
• Simplify
• Just say no

No, no, no! That's insulting if you are in the throes of life right now because often you can't eliminate anything. It would be like asking

• Which meal can my family do without?
• Which kid do I neglect today?
• How do I tell my boss I can't do the work she assigned?

So, how can we manage all we must do and stay upright? Try this:

1. Work diligently and efficiently. Focus 100% on the task at hand and then REMOVE YOURSELF FROM IT. (see a previous post, Formula for Busy People, about setting priorities and working through goals.)
2. Take care of yourself physically. Eat healthy (try eliminating one not-so-good item from your diet), exercise (each week move around a little more than the previous week), and get good sleep (work on your before bed sleep routines and allow enough time for proper sleep). Even Elijah took a God-ordered nap when he was depressed and overwhelmed. (see I Kings 19: 3-9)
3. Work on improving your relationships. Schedule time for fun and social engagements.
4. Be sure to spend time alone with God.

Now...

Invert that list so it looks something like this:

1. Spend time alone with God
2. Work to improve your relationships ("People are more important than things")
3. Take care of your physical well-being
4. Work responsibly and productively

Do you see the difference? Allowing God to be first in your daily priorities enables everything else to fall into place. The busier you are the more you need to place God first.

Wonder of all wonders, privately communicating with God makes me more energetic, it clears my thinking, it minimizes stress, and increases my productivity.I don't know how, but it works every time.

Too Busy not to Spend Time with God!

 

My Prayer Chair in a former backyard

Old Testament David, a man with many responsibilities as king of God's people and a man who frequently found his life in chaos, said it best:  "I seek you with all my heart;...I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees....I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways....I will not neglect your word." (Psalm 119: 10-12, 15-16)

"The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145: 18)

David learned to go from chaos to calm by spending time with his God.

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 Next Post:  How to Build a Rich Devotional Life Painlessly

Formula for Busy People II

BALANCE

I once heard a speaker suggest we plan our daily schedules to include tasks we:

• MUST do
• SHOULD do
• WANT to do

For example, we must feed and provide for our families, we really should make that phone call to a friend, and we want to start a new book or new project. The speaker urged men and women to put balance into their days.

This piggybacks nicely with the previous post that emphasized the importance of establishing rich devotional lives and setting goals and priorities when dealing with today’s fast-paced world. Now the challenge is to bring some order to our tasks so we can enjoy the simplicity and peace, and even fun that God offers.

Life to the Full

 

The must/should/want principle might help you accomplish tasks efficiently so there’s time to enjoy the abundant life Jesus speaks of in the book of John. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10)

Try this:

List about 20 things you enjoy. They can be small, like:

• ordering a decadent, calorie-laden latte
• browsing through a new magazine
• planting a garden
• walking through a hardware store to see all the new gadgets
• renting a movie
• playing on the swings with a child
• hiking a wildlife trail
• camping with friends
• learning a new skill
• taking a day trip to…wherever

Sprinkle one or two of the items on your list into your week as little rewards for yourself.  In doing this you will be living out God’s desire for you to experience life, “…to the full.”

We get so engrossed in caring for others or in carrying out responsibilities that we often neglect to care for ourselves and just have fun. Pretend you are your mom or dad who wants to do something special for their child. That child would be you!

Think about the activities of a typical day and see if you can categorize them into must, should, want groupings. Are you out of balance in one of the areas? What can you do to remedy that? Can you use this suggestion in planning your future days? It not only will help balance out your life, it may make you more efficient and perhaps more fun to be around!

God's Joy & Peace

 

Bottom line is God wants us to experience joy and peace. In this passage from John 10, Jesus calls himself the Gate through which the sheep (believers) will enter, be saved, and find pasture. He concludes by emphasizing the reason for all this is so we can experience abundant life. He wants us to be hard-working, responsible and focused but he also desires we have the fun of being sons and daughters of a King. Go and enjoy life to the full!