Proverbs – Surviving My Schedule
Billy Milton - November 19, 2006
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Today we’re continuing in our series through Proverbs. Last week we looked at the subject of ‘Mastering my Mouth’ and a number of you commented that you found that particular subject very helpful…. for your husbands!:-) If you missed it you can go to our website www.kingsroadchurch.org and either read it, or if you prefer to listen to it, then download it as an MP3 file.
Today we are going to be looking at how to survive our busy schedules. Now, Proverbs is not against hard work. Far from it. Indeed it has much more to say about the sluggard than the hard worker. But what I’m going to be talking about today is not hard work but overwork. I am genuinely concerned that some of you are working yourselves into an early grave. And when anyone challenges you you say something like, “Oh I know but what can I do?” Have you really surrendered control of your life to the corporation? Or the other classic lie we all tell ourselves is this, “A slower day is coming!” Have you ever said that? It’s a lie. A slower day is not coming and never will come unless we make it happen. As that great philosopher Bart Simpson, once said – you have become human doings instead of human beings. How long can you continue to operate at 100 M.P.H. before the wheels come off in some way?
Today I want to make a few suggestions that might be of some help to you.
First of all, let’s see some hands. A quiz to find out if you’re a workaholic:
1. Are you always in a hurry?
2. Is your “To do” list always unrealistically long?
3. Do you use days off to catch up with unfinished work?
4. Has more than one person ever told you to slow down?
5. Do you feel guilty when you relax?
6. Do you have to get sick to take time off?
If you answer yes to 3 or more of these questions then you might have a problem. This is not the kind of life God wants you to live. Did you know that stress is one of the biggest causes of lost working days in the UK? We’re working more and enjoying it less. What can we do? We could try it God’s way. We can learn to R.E.L.A.X.
1. R — Realise my worth
2. E — Enjoy what I already have
3. L — Limit my labor
4. A — Adjust my values
5. X — eXchange my pressure for God’s peace
1. REALISE MY WORTHThe reason many people overwork is because they confuse their work and their worth. We think that if we work a lot, we’re worth a lot. We confuse what we do with who we are. In the UK, we get our primary identity from what we do. When we meet someone, after we find out their name, usually the second question is…what? Yes - “What do you do?” We get our worth from our work. What does that do for the unemployed? The Bible teaches us that we are much-loved children of God… regardless of what our work is. People overwork for a variety of reasons but at the end of the day no reason is good enough to destroy your health or your marriage. I remember working for a company who demanded their pound of flesh…big time! 12-hour days were the norm and weekend working very common. I kept up this pace for a number of years until my wife pointed out that I was heading for a lonely, unfulfilled old age if I didn’t stop. Oh sure I was getting a degree of kudos from the job… but it was destroying me. But the company was so grateful weren’t they? Well, not really. I went back a few years ago and hardly anybody knew me. There was no plaque on the wall: ‘To the hardest worker this company ever had’; ‘To the man who kept this company afloat’. Nothing, I was a forgotten has-been. Just as well my self worth was not wrapped up in that job! And yet I sweat blood for them.
The antidote is to realize what God says about you. James 1:18 “God decided to give us life through the word of truth so we might be the most important of all the things he made.” God says you matter more than the rest of creation. You can relax; you don’t have to overwork to prove your worth to him. You don’t need to spend your whole life trying to win the approval of other people. But you do need to realize how valuable you are to God. Jesus said in Matthew 6 “… your heavenly Father feeds the (sparrows). And you are far more valuable to him than they are.” If God notices even when a bird falls to the ground and he takes care of birds, don’t you think He values you?
2. ENJOY WHAT I ALREADY HAVE
Eccl. 3:13 “All of us should… enjoy what we have worked for. It is God’s gift.” Can you be so preoccupied in getting more that you don’t enjoy what you’ve got? Sure. We have these beautiful homes but nobody enjoys them because nobody is at home. We’re all staying late at the office. We get into a dangerous spiral: The desire to acquire. They’ve got that so we’ve got to get that. They’ve moved up so we’ve got to move up. We’re trying to keep up with the Jones’s not realising they are deeply in debt. We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t even like! We spend all of our time making payments on these things we’ve bought and inevitably relationships begin to deteriorate. That’s not the way God wants us to live.
“It’s better to have only a little, with peace of mind, than a banquet spiced with quarrels.” Prov 17:1 The greatest things in life aren’t things. Do you ever play the little game, “What’s the one thing you’d take from your house if it was burning down and you had to get out quick?” Nobody I know has ever said ‘the television’ or ‘my golf clubs’. It’s nearly always something like a photograph album or my journal or something else that speaks of relationships. We know that ultimately the things that matter are our family and friends and our relationship with God and yet we put them on hold for that ‘slower day’ that’s just around the corner until they are no longer there. Don’t do that. Enjoy what you have while you’ve got it and don’t be worrying about getting more all of the time.
3. LIMIT MY LABOUR
I must make a conscious decision to make time for other things besides work. I have to decide how many hours I realistically want to spend working each week and then I need to STICK TO IT! I need to schedule time for myself, with God alone, with my family — those are important elements in my life as well as work. Eccl. 10:15 “Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work!” If I’m always working all the time, I’m stupid. If the bow is never unstrung it loses its power.
A lady called her pastor one day, upset. She said, “I called all day Monday and couldn’t get through to you.”
Pastor: “Monday is my day off.”
Lady: “The devil never takes a day off.”
Pastor: “Yes, and if I didn’t take a day off I’d be just like the devil.”
Exodus 20:9-10 “You have six days in which to do your work, but the 7th day is to be a day of rest dedicated to Me.” God says that one day off every week is the rule. This is the fourth commandment. It’s so important that God put it up there with, “Don’t commit adultery” and “Don’t murder”. That’s how serious God takes this. Every week, you take a whole day off. If you’re not taking a day off, you’re breaking the 10 commandments. If it didn’t really matter God wouldn’t have said it.
What should you do on your day off, your Sabbath? Well, you definitely don’t use it to catch up on work you haven’t finished. You need to:
1) Rest your body. If you don’t take time to rest your body, your body will make time to rest itself — either in the hospital or with a cold or flu. Our best requires rest. At one time in communist Russia they outlawed Sunday as a day of rest. Within a few years they had to reinstate it. Not for religious reasons but because the health of the nation had collapsed. They were all burnt out. Do you feel guilty when you relax? Jesus didn’t. He took time off. Are you busier than Jesus? Is what you’re doing more important than what Jesus did?
2) Recharge your emotions. What things recharge you emotionally? You need quietness. You need recreation. You need time for relationships. We saw in our 40 Days of Community series that we were made for relationships and we become impoverished when we don’t get enough.
3) You need to refocus your spirit. Prov 8:17 says, “I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” The Bible calls this worship. Worship brings things into perspective. When you come into church with a big problem, worship puts things into perspective. You have more energy to deal with the problem and more understanding. You need time alone with God every day. If you’re too busy for God you’re too busy. You’re missing out on one of the very things you were made for. Don’t cut off your spirit.
4. ADJUST MY VALUES
Prov 10:22 “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.” In order to reduce busyness in my life I must change my thinking about what is important. Eccl. 4:4 says, “I’ve learned why people work so hard to succeed; it is because they envy the things their neighbors have.” You have to stop and say you’re not going to get caught up in the rat race of always getting more. There are some things more important than getting more. Mark 8:36 “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” Is it worth it? Ask yourself this question about every area in your life. We may be making great money right now, but are the kids getting any parenting? They’re going to be gone in a few more years. Will I regret that?
5. EXCHANGE MY PRESSURE FOR GOD’S PEACE
Prov 16:16 “How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver.”
This gets at the very root of your stress. There are three kinds of fatigue:
There is physical fatigue — tired muscles. That can be replenished pretty quickly.
There is emotional fatigue — tired emotions, feelings.
There is spiritual fatigue — a dry spirit. This is the deepest.
You may need a holiday. But a holiday will not help these last two so much. You need more than just time off to recharge your emotions and focus your spirit. You need a relationship with God. You can take a two-week holiday in Spain but when you come back you’re still going to have the same problems. The pressures are still going to be there. It means more than just taking time off; it means readjusting my values and exchanging my pressure for God’s peace.
A little child doesn’t like to lie down, to rest. Resistance to rest is a mark of immaturity. If you’re always working and never taking any time to rest it not only says you’re breaking the Ten Commandments but it also means that there is immaturity in your thinking. Has God ever had to make you lie down? If you don’t slow down, sometimes God will just make you lie down. He cares about you. You matter to Him. You need a living relationship with Christ who will help you set the pace of your life.
I want to ask you to do something this afternoon. If you are married, sit down with your husband or wife and agree on a work schedule that suits you both. Build in time for each other and your children, if you have any. And build in time for just you. If you are single then get a good friend who will hold you accountable and do the same exercise. Will you do that? It could change your life.