Redeeming the Time – Part 2

This newest series of messages on Internet Pastor is called “Redeeming the Time”. If it seems like life keeps speeding up and getting busier and you don’t know where the time is going, you will find this series helpful.

We are doing a series called Redeeming the Time. The idea is to help us slow down so that it doesn’t feel like life is passing us by. Last week we introduced a little acrostic for Time. Teach yourself to say no. Identify your values. Make time for rest. Embrace God’s timing.

Last week was TIME, this week is SPACE. We need to create a little space in our lives. Some distance between where we are and where the edge is. We seem to live life on the edge. There is no peace on the edge.

Job 3:26 (NIV)
26 I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

I did some research about being too busy on the Internet:

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”
~John Lennon

“What’s another word for thesaurus?”
~Steven Wright.

Yeah, that last one doesn’t fit, I just liked it. So how do we deal with being too busy? We have to put some SPACE in our lives. Some room to stop and breathe and not always be living right on the edge of everything.

1. S – Schedule Realistically

Put some space in your schedule. You need to leave some time unscheduled. Don’t fill it completely. And, the busier your life is, the more unscheduled time you need to find. To live life without any space is foolish.

Ecclesiastes 10:15 (TEV)
“Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work.”

It reminds me of the story of the guy who comes home and his little kindergarten daughter asked him why he’s working so hard and why he has to always bring work home. He looked at her and said, “I just don’t get it finished at work so I need to bring it home and get it done.” The daughter looks up at him and says, “Daddy, I think they should put you in the slower group.”

Life is an adventure, not a race. Why does it become so important to get there quickly? We have a tendency to turn everything into a competition. Life is not a competition. We have to learn that it is not how fast we live that is important, it’s how well we live.

2. P – Prune periodically

If you are a gardener than you know that pruning is important to the health of the plant, or bush, or vine. It is sometimes hard to cut back what seems like healthy growth, but the reality is, without periodic pruning, the plant would become unhealthy.

We need to do regular pruning of our own lives as well. We are constantly adding new activity branches to our lives. In order to be healthy, we need to cut back some of the other activities. You can’t just keep adding without cutting back, without pruning your activities. You are even going to have to get rid of some activities that are still producing fruit in your life because you are in a new season. We need to learn to do this pruning ourselves or it will come in other ways.

Proverbs 20:30 says, “Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.”

I like to think of this as responding to God’s mercy. I believe we usually start out experiencing “tender mercy”. You need to cut back. If we do it great, if we don’t we may experience another kind of mercy, and it will get cut back for us.

3. A – Accept limitations

You are not superman/woman. You have limits, limitations. You can’t do it all.

Psalm 119:96a (TEV)
“I have learned that everything has limits…..”

We have to remember that we are only human. We are not bullet proof, or invincible. We are just human beings.

We keep thinking that we can do something in five minutes that takes at least 30 minutes. Almost nothing in life takes five minutes. Half hour meetings always take an hour.

On top of that we live in a culture that constantly tells us “You can do it all! You can have it all! You can be it all! You can have everything! You can be whatever you want!” The truth is, that’s a lie. It is not true. You can be all that God wants you to be but you cannot be whatever you want to be. Most us will never sing like Pavarotti or dance like Barishnakov. You don’t have that natural ability. So there are limits in your life. You can only be what God made you to be.

But what about that verse

Philippians 4:13 (NIV)
13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Don’t take that verse out of context. That verse is not saying that you can go beyond your human limits. Don’t use that verse to think, “I can keep on taking more and more and there will never be any fall out because “I can do everything”. It is a misuse of the verse. You have physical limitations, you have emotional limitations, you have mental limitations, and you have time limitations.

How do you know when you are reaching your limits? Neat little warning lights that God designed into your system start to go off.

Pain. Fatigue. Stress. Lack of joy. Irritability.

Just like in your car, ignoring the warning lights can cause greater problems.

4. C – Choose to trust God more

God can do more in twenty minutes than you can do in twenty years. You need to let go of some of the things you have been hanging on to and start trusting God more. Perhaps, the only positive thing that comes from reaching the edge is that it will force you to trust God. One time the Apostle Paul hit the edge big time.

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NCV)
8 Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the trouble we suffered in Asia. We had great burdens there that were beyond our own strength. We even gave up hope of living. 9 Truly, in our own hearts we believed we would die. But this happened so we would not trust in ourselves but in God, who raises people from the dead.

God can do what you can’t do. You have to learn to trust Him more and trust less in your busyness.

5. E – Expect to have problems

This is why you need space in the first place because you have problems in life. Nothing goes as planned. If you think, “If I’ve got to go a certain distance and it’s going to take me fifteen minutes if traffic is great,” you probably ought to allow space. There may be traffic. You may have a flat tire. You may run out of gas. You may forget something and have to go back.

Expect to have problems. Jesus told us we should expect to have problems.

John 16:33
“In the world you will have trouble.”

He doesn’t say, “You might have trouble.” He doesn’t say, “You could have trouble.” He says, “You’re going to have trouble.” Having some space in our lives will keep problems from taking us over the edge.

Build some SPACE into your lives and you will begin to see a difference. Remember, our busyness is really a statement about who we think God really is. Is it on Him or is it all on you?

Come back often to see the latest sermons or bible studies on your Online Pastor site. We are blessed to be your Pastor Online!