Do you spend more time singin’ in the rain or singin’ the blues when it comes to time?
We know we have the same 24 hours that everyone else does, but many of us aren’t content with our time. I know, because of the innumerable books, articles, and tools sold on the basis that they can give us more time.
Our discontent with time is obvious when:
We procrastinate. We wish we had more time to do the things we enjoy, rather than those we don’t.
We complain about how busy we are.
We are annoyed by people who slow us down.
We arrive late. We wanted more time to do something else.
We cut our sleep time short. We wish we had more active hours each day.
We multi-task, giving nothing our full attention.
We live in fear of not getting everything done.
We spend our time looking for ways to save time.
Discontentment with time has become socially acceptable, even among Christians. While there is wisdom in some time management and productivity teaching, we can use the information to feed our discontentment and find ourselves in a vicious cycle. The following parable came to me as I sought the Lord’s wisdom for my discontentment with time:
There was once a very competent woman who was hired by a brilliant man in a company that was destined for success. He took his time interviewing her so he could put her in a position that would make the best use of her abilities, but would also enable her to grow. He gave her a simple job description and invited her to come to him each morning to ask what he would like her to do. He also made it clear that he might call upon her unexpectedly as well, but that he would be sure to provide her with everything she needed to do a good job for him.
At first the woman was delighted with her boss. He was the nicest boss she could imagine having. He gave her meaningful work that made the days fly by and she felt great! But after she grew accustomed to the job, she figured it really wasn’t necessary to meet with him each morning. She pretty much knew what needed doing. In fact, she even recognized some things that needed doing that her boss hadn’t mentioned. She was quite excited about her new projects, but also surprised and even a little irritated when her boss interrupted them to give her work she wasn’t expecting.
At about the same time, she noticed that some of her co-workers could really use some training. They weren’t doing their jobs well at all. She meant to just train them, but before she knew it, she was doing some of her co-workers’ tasks, too. As a result, she had to keep longer hours. She stayed later and came in earlier. She even had to take work home! She lost sleep as she worried about how she would get it all done. Finally, she was so stressed that she decided to talk to her boss about the impossible workload he’d given her. Things were so bad and he hadn’t done anything to help her. Didn’t he care about her at all?
Our Awesome Boss
What’s missing from the analogy is that God isn’t just a boss, but the one who created us to do good works (see Ephesians 2:10). We don’t really know our loving God if we think He would give us more tasks than time to do them in. I feel so terrible for being the woman in the parable.
While I believe we are to be content with the time the Lord has given us, I also believe that God can supernaturally expand our time when necessary to do His work. I have had times when I was overbooked and stressed, but I met with my Boss and asked for help. Commitments I had suddenly disappeared or I felt like Wonder Woman doing things in hyper speed.
When we are discontent with our time, let’s meet every morning with our awesome Boss. Let’s ask Him what He would like us to do, what He would like us to let go of, and for the grace to accept the time we have as more than enough.
My daughter had her first sleepover birthday party last night. I didn't make this cake, but I wish I had. How cute is this?
While we didn't have cake, we did have one girl who struggled. As I lay awake after returning her to her mother in the middle of the night, I thought about how Christians are sleepover shy, too.
I'm hungry. That was one of the shy girl's complaints that I can relate to. Though she had a healthy-sized bowl of popcorn late in the evening, she longed for more. Like her, I've enjoyed so much in life, yet I'm not fully satisfied. No matter how many blessings we experience in this life, we all continue to be hungry.
I'm scared. That was another of her issues with the sleepover. I get that. My house was a dark strange place to her. This world is scary to us as believers, too. The Bible gives us enough "Don't be afraid"s to last us a year, and yet we're still not comfortable with this dark world. Maybe we're not supposed to be.
I wanna go home. The sleepover shy girl missed her mom and dad. Why wouldn't she? There's nothing like being near the one you've always known, the one who loves you unconditionally. While this sleepover we call life can be great fun and we enjoy the people we're with, we wanna go home, too. Our Father is waiting for us with open arms. That image makes the long night a little easier to get through, doesn't it?
Good-night, friend. See you in the morning.
Psalm 4:8 In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.
The word 'intolerance' has become synonymous with hate and no wonder. Unspeakable crimes against humanity have been committed as the result of it. But I believe there is another side to intolerance.
What many people don't know is my mom was intolerant; she refused to put up with backtalk. As a result, our home was free of the parental disrespect that has become so commonplace today.
My friend, Sharon Rohrbach, was also intolerant. She couldn't sleep at night thinking about the babies being discharged to homes that weren't equipped to care for them. Sharon's intolerance led her to start Nurses for Newborns, a foundation dedicated to protecting some of our most vulnerable citizens.
American women were also intolerant. They couldn't abide the injustice of the denial of their right to vote. Many of our foremothers worked tirelessly to gain suffrage.
I'm thankful for my mom's intolerance that taught me to respect authority, for Sharon's intolerance which taught me to be concerned for at-risk newborns, and for a heritage of women's intolerance that gave me the right to vote.
But I am most thankful for our intolerant God. While it is true that He could not ignore our sin, it is also true that He could not tolerate the consequence of that sin–our eternal separation from Him.
What is the difference between this kind of intolerance and the kind that gets all the press today? The former is motivated by love.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Tonight I watched Game 6 of the World Series in which Cardinals player, David Freese, dropped an easy pop fly that one of my kids could have caught. He choked. In front of an audience of millions.
My heart went out to him. I've been there. Almost literally! I was a catcher in a girls' softball championship tournament and dropped an easy pop fly. I think more than once! Fortunately I don't remember that little detail. But I'll never forget the sick feeling in my stomach, the shame, and the self-loathing.
The game (in case you weren't watching) looked like a sure loss for the Cardinals because David Freese's wasn't the only error. My husband was practically snoring in the ninth inning. We both thought, "We messed up; it's over."
But miracle of miracles, the Cardinals' hopes were resuscitated with a last-minute hit from none other than David Freese. Much too soon, that hit seemed for naught because once again the rival Rangers were up two runs. We figured we had a nice rally, but the night would end in defeat. Instead, in extra innings, home boy David Freese hit a home run to end the game.
Suddenly, David who we expected to be despised and dejected when the game was over, was heralded as a champion. When he was interviewed afterward, David was able to laugh about "looking like an idiot" because he had been redeemed. He explained the Cardinals' unlikely victory by crediting his coach, Tony LaRussa. David said, "He knows what he's doing."
What a thrill this game was, not just because it was a nail biter and my team won, but because we saw our lives being played out on that field. We're all chokers like David. While we expect to be despised and rejected for looking like idiots, we'll be redeemed champions when the game's over. After all, we have a Coach who "knows what He's doing."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:37)
I went to the funeral of my husband's beloved uncle today. And I was surprised.
No one mentioned his weight, his body fat percentage, his golf handicap, his IQ, his investment return, Amazon ranking, his Klout score, number of Facebook friends, followers, or blog page views.
They did mention how many grandchildren he had, but really the only impressive statistic was 69–the number of years he was married to the same woman. Despite this veritable dearth of evidence of greatness, people really seemed to have loved him.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Luke 12:7)
I was in my third month of expecting my fourth child when I had a very disturbing dream. I dreamt that I miscarried in very vivid detail. I remember looking in the mirror the morning after, feeling satisfied that all was well. I had seen my doctor several weeks before and he said I was fine.
A short time later, however, that dream came true. How good of God to prepare me for one of the toughest times of my life using a dream. The OB on call reassured me that bleeding could be perfectly normal, but in my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn’t. Not for me. At the hospital, the ultrasound technician confirmed that my baby had stopped growing four weeks previously. There was nothing to do but go home and wait for the loss to be complete. I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything surgically. I had driven myself to the hospital and my husband had met me after we got someone to watch the kids. I felt completely alone when I got behind the wheel and turned on the radio. The lyrics playing on my favorite Christian radio station were, “When you feel like you’ve lost it all, Jesus will still be there.”
I was comforted and really thought that knowing for sure I had lost a baby would be the worst of it. It wasn’t. The next several weeks brought excruciating pain as I miscarried at home alone, a hormonal roller coaster that made PMS seem refreshing, and painful questions about God, relationships, and the future. Even while in the middle of the valley, I knew that I was there for a reason. I called my editor and asked to write a pamphlet for Lutheran Hour Ministries called “Losing a Baby Without Losing Hope.” My experience and the process of writing opened my heart to so many women I knew who had miscarried. I even called a friend who lost a baby years before and apologized for not being as sensitive as I should have been.
One of the recommendations I made in the pamphlet was to find a way to memorialize the baby. I knew I wanted a Christmas ornament, but I hadn’t yet chosen one when I spoke at a church on the subject of grief and loss. (As an aside, that speech happened to be scheduled the day after 9/11.) I was given a gift as a presenter–an angel ornament. I am comforted looking at that ornament every year as I decorate the tree, but I really look forward to seeing my angel in heaven one day.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
