When Life Happens
Posted by Tomi on September 6, 2009
“Never say this can never happen to me” preached the Senior pastor in church today. His sermon was about how easy it was to fall into sin but half way through his sermon, something he said triggered a memory from about twelve years ago and it was all I could think of for the rest of the service. What the sermon brought back to mind was another setting, another message and another pastor.
“When Life happens, how do we find time for God?”
“Dealing with the daily demands of our life, how do we spend quality time with God?”
These were the questions a visiting minister had been invited discuss with the graduating students in my fellowship that semester as they prepared for their final exams.
“Thinking about your bills or the boss at work, worrying about your spouse or a sick child, all these can engulf your mind so much that the last thing you think about is sometimes God”
How tough can it be to take 10 or 15 minutes out of your day to spend with God? I wondered that day as he explained how the hurried pace of our daily lives after college often makes it difficult for us to spend time with God. It all sounded silly to me but now that I think back on it, that pastor’s message was based on years of experience and maturity. Why did it seemed ridiculous to me at the time? Why not? I was a undergraduate student, no spouse or children to worry over. I didn’t even have to worry about my tuition or living expenses, all was taken care of by my parents, I lived in an apartment at my uncles house, he took care of all the bills and so I didn’t have to worry about that either so how could i ever have been able to fathom this ridiculous idea that life after school was going to be any different? As far as I was concerned, the most important thing was getting a good job and once that was taken care of, everything else was bound to fall into place. Well I was later to find out that that kind of thinking was nothing but the rumblings of an immature mind. Now over 10 years later, looking back in retrospect, i find cannot argue with that minister’s rationalization. Instead I find myself wishing that I had listened better to his admonitions and advice.
Life after college has indeed been on the fast pace. With work, marriage and parenting, there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to do all I have to do. Being a stay at home mom, you would think that i have all the time in the world to do much. But between running errands when the children are in school and being a writer, the 24 hours of a day seem to fly by too fast.
After dropping the children off at school in the morning, I just have enough time to do my grocery shopping or pick up laundry before i have to turn around and pick the babies up from preschool. Then we go home to get lunch and right after lunch, it’s back to school to pick my kindergartener up. The younger ones are in school only a few days in the week, so I don’t have much time in which I am by myself. I’m sure most parents would agree with me that getting anything done while the kids are up and about is tough so the only time I can really do anything is after I get them into bed. Between finishing up on my writing, and getting the stuff for the next day ready, I barely have enough free time. A lot of times, i breeze through my prayers and read the passage for the day on Bible Gateway. But I discovered that I am tired, cranky and impatient most of the time and mentally, physically but most of all spiritually, I feel drained, because I am not spending enough time as I should getting refreshed from the fountain of life.
Reflecting on this, I begin to understand why in Mathew 14:23 and Mathew 26:36, Jesus took time apart by Himself to pray. It was a time for Him to refresh. He was in the human body just like us so just like us, He needed time for replenishment of His physical and spiritual strength thus he went apart by Himself to avoid distractions and eliminate interruptions. It is indeed essential that despite the “business” of our lives, we must find time for ourselves (our me time) a time set aside for us to refresh. Most families take a vacation in the summer for this very reason. We need to remember that each one of us needs that time alone not just for our physical health but also for our spiritual health and so we have to try to find it. It may be as simple as having your spouse watch the kids for a few minutes in the day to get that alone time. It may also be scheduling for a sitter to come in once a week or once a month for a few hours. You are the only one that can identify what works for you. But whatever it is, we need to remember that when life happens and responsibilities increase, it isn’t time to be away from God. It is the time that we need Him more. He is the only one that “gives us the strength to do all things” Philippians 4:13 and with Him by our side, even the mountains of responsibilities the challenges of out lives thrust in our laps each day will “melt like wax” Psalm 97:5.
Think of it this way, “When life happens, to really progress, we need quality time with God”.
