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Are You Too Busy for God?
Perhaps the greatest problem facing parents these days is the breathless pace at which we live our lives.
I love the story of the first grader who had noticed that her father had been bringing home more and more work from the office each night. When she asked her mother why, her mother explained, “Daddy has so much work to do that he can’t get it all done at the office.” “Well then,” the girl innocently wondered, “why don’t they put him in a slower group?”
You know, maybe that’s not such a bad idea. As the pace of life gets more hectic and unhealthy, perhaps the solution is to join a “slower group.”
I encourage families to ruthlessly eliminate stress, but that’s growing more difficult when the culture encourages us to live in “crisis mode” all the time – work hard, play hard, crash hard.
Let me be blunt – if that’s your life philosophy, you’re flirting with disaster. And how you answer the following questions will give you a clearer indication of how close to the edge you actually are:
1. Have you stopped enjoying life simply because you’re too busy?
2. When was the last time you developed a new relationship?
3. How’s your energy level? Are you exhausted all the time?
4. How often do you and your spouse spend time together just the two of you? (Do you even have a regular “date night?”)
5. Does your family have an enjoyable dinner together on a regular basis?
6. How much sleep do you get each night? Would you consider it to be “enough?”
7. When was the last time you took a restful day off?
8. Do you have regular proactive family times together?
9. How’s your family’s financial situation? Do you have credit problems or carry a heavy load of debt?
10. Are your children showing signs of stress?
If you struggle with many of those questions, you’re among the majority of families who are living in crisis mode . . . and crisis-mode living paralyzes families.
Now, there are no easy solutions to rectifying this situation. If it’s taken you years to hone this “crisis mode” mentality, it’ll probably take some time to correct it. But there are three things you can do even today that will help get you on the road to recovery. Ask yourself:
1. Do I like the person I’m becoming?
2. Is the work of God I’m doing with vocation and family destroying the work of God in me?
3. How often does my family only receive my “emotional scraps”?
If you think you’re “too busy for God,” you probably are – but you can change!
(Excerpted from 10 Building Blocks for a Happy Family by Jim Burns, Ph.D.)
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