Since I transitioned into a five-day-work-week I have struggled with the issue of not having enough time. Cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, ironing, appointments, etc. are now always on the top of my list. Life for me became an unending cycle of checking off that “Urgent To-Do List”. Relegated into the background were a lot of the non-urgent but essential tasks such as prayer, Bible study, one-on-one time with family, exercise, service & volunteering and one or two relaxing hobbies that were good for my soul . My natural tendency was to skip the essentials for the urgent and at the end of the day, I felt beaten and uninspired.
I wished, everyday, that I could spend more time in prayer and praise but the “urgent” was beckoning me away. I pined for the days when I had the luxury of taking 2-3 mile walks but now it takes too much time away from cleaning and doing laundry. I wanted to be aware of what’s happening in the world but don’t have enough time to watch the news.
But God, as it turns out, is the God of even the minutest detail of our lives. He gave me a revelation. It was one of those “Eureka” moments that made me snap my fingers and say,” Why haven’t I done it before?”
As a health conscious person and a Christian wife and mom who is mindful of what’s going on in the world, I started so-called “Power Walks” integrating exercise, sun, nature and prayer all-in-one. I watch the news in the morning when I get dressed for work, listen to past programs of my favorite Christian radio commentaries off the internet while I iron, and watch Fox News to brush up on the current issues while cooking or exercising or sweeping and tidying the house. I read my email from my ipad while in the rest room and pray more while driving to and from work. I massage my son as a prelude for sleep while we both listen to Christian radio. The same thing I do for my husband whose feet are sore after long hours at work. It is a time of quietness and ministering to loved ones at the end of a busy day-- two birds in one.
As a parent it became a challenge to find meaningful teaching opportunities with my son . But I find it takes only a few minutes, after I arrive home from work, to pull him away from his computer and contraptions to talk about his day and interject prayer and God’s word into that interaction. We also serve together in church and the time we spend together to volunteer became that rare opportunity to help him learn by example and practice with supervision important social skills knowing him to be a timid boy.
Striking that balance between the urgent and the essential makes us good stewards of the precious time we have on this earth. It fulfills our inherent desire for meaning in the hustle and bustle of daily living. What I can say for myself is, it has made me a happier and more fulfilled wife, mom and human being, as a result.
It is so easy to become a slave to the urgent and lose our grip on what really matters. The laundry and cooking and cleaning will never end so let us make that essentials to-do list and find ways to smuggle them into our daily lives.
We have to keep our spiritual tanks full.
Kingdoms rise and fall on the power of prayer: we have to find ways to smuggle prayer into our lives.
Our families are important. Sooner or later our kids are going to leave the nest. Have we spent enough time with them? We won’t have our spouses forever. Have we done the same?
Mental and physical exercise are essential to our well-being. Do not postpone it for the tomorrow that may never come.
Jesus had said: “Let the dead bury their dead.”
I am saying now: “Let the laundry take care of itself”.
Know that we have things of eternal consequence to do and do them.
Do them now.
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