Too Much Time On My Hands

What should I do with the extra time I have now in light of COVID19: This is a question I have been hearing from many these last weeks. For many people working from home, and those who unfortunately simply can’t go to work due to the governmental restrictions issued to quell the spread as quickly as possible, they are faced with more “idle time” than they have ever had.

Sure, you could binge-watch all kinds of shows on Netflix, which I know many people have been doing, but there are many other more life-giving things you could do with this nation-wide long-lasting “snow day” of sorts.

The current reality has created an opportunity for us to go deep with God and those closest to us. However, I know that the vast majority of people will not maximize this potential life-changing time because we lack the understanding and often the discipline to harness any time for the benefit of our soul.

The Apostle Paul gives us this sage advice in the letter he wrote to the church in Ephesus:

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” ~Ephesians 5:15-16

Paul is making an assumption that he feels he needs to address. People often don’t make wise choices thereby missing divine opportunities that could change their life and bless a dark world.

In the book “Ordering Your Private World, author Gordon MacDonald writes about the LAW of UNSEIZED TIME. To his thesis, he relates that there are four laws about our extra time.

LAW 1: Unseized time flows toward my weakness.

 LAW 2: Unseized time comes under the influence of the dominant people in my world.

 LAW 3: Unseized time surrenders to the demands of all emergencies.

 LAW 4: Unseized time gets invested in things that gain public acclamation.

Right now we are moving through a moment that we have never been in before. So not only are we struggling with the change, we are confused about the unknown waters our lives have drifted into. Since there is not a specific end date to all of this, most people will simply waste the gift of time they have been given, and will most likely regret it later.

LAW 1 states that unseized time flows toward my weakness. This is so important to understand. MacDonald knows that we move toward the things we use to medicate our pain, the things we do numb out from the tension, or the things that are time wasters when we have an excess.

What is the weakness in your life that you gravitate toward?

What things do you tend to use to fill available minutes or hours?

Becoming aware of this is half the battle, but not the whole battle. Knowing where your unseized time flows wakes you up to the shadow that would betray and reduce you, however, you don’t have to let that win the battle. As your awareness is ignited you realize that you now can choose differently, and think differently.

Here are some powerful quotes from MacDonald:

“If my private world is in order, it will be because I have made a daily determination to see time as God’s gift and worthy of careful investment.” (68)

“Disorganized Christians rarely enjoy intimacy with God. They certainly have intentions of pursuing that camaraderie, but it never quite gets established. No one has to tell them that time must be set aside for the purpose of Bible study and reflection, for intercession, for worship. They know all of that. They simply are not doing it. They excuse themselves, saying there is no time, but within their private worlds they know it is more a matter of organization and personal will than anything else.” (72)

“If my private world is in order, it will be because I have determined that every day will be for me a day of growth in knowledge and wisdom.” (96)

The second LAW which states: “Unseized time comes under the influence of the dominant people in my world,” is also true. I promise you that if you don’t have a plan for your time, someone else does! Other dominant people will begin influencing your time allocation. This is especially true if you are a people pleaser.

Our current crisis is an opportunity for you to seize your time and leverage it for spiritual growth in the garden of your soul. To this end, MacDonalds states: “If my private world is in order, it will be because I regularly choose to enlarge the spiritual center of my life.” (124)

Your spiritual garden needs a gardener and that is you! To tend your spiritual garden well you need to know your rhythms of maximum effectiveness, have good criteria for choosing how to use your time, and budget your time far in advance just like you would your money.

DANGER: When we allow our unseized time to flow towards our weakness we lose some valuable privileges such as:

  • We will never learn to enjoy the eternal and infinite perspective on reality that we were created to have. Our powers of judgment will be substantially curtailed.
  • If the spiritual center of our private world goes undisciplined, a second privilege we will lack will be a vital, life-giving friendship with Christ.
  • A third privilege undisciplined spirits will lose is the fear of accountability to God.
  • Letting the spiritual center fall into disrepair means, fourth, that we lose the awareness of our real size in comparison to the Creator.
  • Finally, a neglected, disordered spiritual center usually means that we have little reserve or resolve for crisis moments such as failure, humiliation, suffering, the death of a loved one, or loneliness. (129-130)

A final thought…

One more reason many don’t use their unseized time to culture the spiritual garden of their soul is because they are afraid of intimacy with God. “What if God doesn’t like me if I show up?” “Ya know, God and I have this safe distance kind of relationship where I don’t ask too much of Him and He doesn’t ask too much of me, so we just kinda let it be.” Or, “If I enter stillness, silence and God’s presence, I am just simply afraid of what might percolate up from the deep waters of my life. Things I haven’t dealt with, things I am bitter about, things I have not forgiven, or even things I have wrongly done to others.”

If this is you, know that God is love, and His love will begin to dissipate the fears in your soul. He is longing and waiting for you to slip into His presence and receive His grace. There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts away all fear the Apostle John reminds us.

While our world is in COVID19 driven crisis, many have also been given a gift of time that can create the shalom we are longing to experience.

The choice is yours, don’t let your weakness win the current gift of extra time that sits before you.

The one about “splagchnizomai”

The word that best describes the motivation of Jesus and the heart of God is splagchnizomai.” The Greek word is translated as compassion, or love and compassion, but it is more powerful than that. This type of compassion is an invitation into being more human while experiencing more of the divine. This episode will change the way you think God thinks about you!

Re:Lent

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Every year I have many people ask me “What is the purpose of Lent?” Why do we emphasize or practice something that isn’t found in the Bible?” What are the origins of Lent” and  “isn’t it Catholic?” If you did not grow up in a main-line church (Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist etc.) then Lent might be foreign to you. However, if you did grow up in one of those denominations, you see Lent as a 40-day focus on repentance, and removing the things that distract us from living a God-centric life.

Another way to put it is that Lent is a 40-day retreat that helps us realign with God. I don’t know about you, but I need as many opportunities as possible to realign my heart with the heart of God.

The Biblical connections would be the 40 day period that Moses encountered God on Mt. Sinai as well as the 40 days that Jesus fasted in the desert and was tempted by Satan. In light of the latter, that is why fasting has been a traditional part of the Lenten journey.

We miss the power of Lent, though, when we simply think we need to give up chocolate or something we like for forty days because it’s Lent…This misses the point and is a waste of good chocolate. When we desire to draw near to God, we ask His Spirit to reveal those things which continually negotiate for His attention and we choose to reprioritize that thing in our life so that God is first. Perhaps you do have an issue with food. Food is fuel, nothing more, nothing less. So if food is used for comfort, or dealing with stress or any other way to medicate your life, then food would be a good thing to fast from. There are, however, many things that get lodged into first place leaving God in the dust.

What is it for you? Sports? Movies? Alcohol? Sex? Power? Leisure? Bad Religion?

Or maybe it’s more subtle like, stress, anger, manipulation, blaming, negativity, hatred, self-hatred, fear, excuses, arrogance or even judging.

All of these things carry something that we like, even though on the outside we would think it wrong, but somewhere there is a pay-off, and that is why we keep doing them.

Yet, when we continue to live this way, unrepentantly, these things become the gods we worship, and they are vicious gods.

Lent is a season in the church that helps us as individuals, and as a community, rid ourselves of the sins that entangle, ensnare and sabotage our spiritual growth, and that is powerful.

As life is always a two-way movement of sorts, Lent, for me, is also a time of “adding to” not merely subtracting from.

What do you need to add into your spiritual journey this year?

How about Grace-giving, compassion, meditation, prayer, reading life-giving books, forgiveness, compliments, positive words to others, pursuing justice for the marginalized and oppressed, being a conduit of love to every person you come into contact with. Teresa of Calcutta said it well:

“As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus’ thirst…’Repent and believe’ Jesus tells us. What are we to repent?  Our indifference, our hardness of heart.  What are we to believe?  Jesus thirsts even now, in your heart and in the poor — He knows your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you.”  

I think that the most beautiful moment of Lent happens when you do your soul work, realize that there is much shadow still inside of you, and yet experience the overwhelming and irrational love and grace of God. This kind of love knocks us off of our feet, makes our head dizzy and confounds the wisest in the world. This leaves us astonished, as Brennan Manning noted:

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.” 

Grace and Peace…