http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXKDu6cdXLI
Preacher man and I started a Sunday school class back in the summer sometime for new people joining the church. It's hard to "break in" to a class that has been together since the dawn of time and you don't know if you fit in or not. Our classes are broke into age groups which I feel is a sad thing, mainly cuz you don't get the advantage of walking through life with people who are different than you. There is something that a young mother can learn from a woman in her 70's who has already been there and done that. To counter, the 70 year old can become refreshed and interested in new ways of looking at things through the eyes of a young mother. I get it that you are more comfortable around people you "look" like, but your focus becomes narrow and so does your view of life.
We are reading "God isn't in a hurry" by Warren Wiersbe and it's a easy read with short chapters which makes it a doable Sunday school book. The chapter we covered this week was called "An hour at a time" and it talked about wasting time, not having time and what that looks like for each of us. So Preacher man asked what we all did for leisure in our life. This was a good thing for him to talk about, just coming off a week vacation. I was surprised to hear how many people 'relax' by turning on the TV. Can I ask you something? When was the last time you watched anything on TV that was relaxing? I'm not saying I don't watch TV, I'm saying it's not what I would consider relaxing. Relaxing to me is reading a book, taking a walk, sitting on the porch when the mosquitos are all dead, and things that help me unwind.
This brought up what does your day generally look like. A perfect morning for me would be getting up at 5, doing a treadmill session, walking the herd with Preacher man, fixing breakfast, having God time and the day begins after that. For about 13 years now I have been spending almost ever morning with God. It started out as 15 minutes and has moved into more like an hour to an hour and a half. I know that may seem crazy to some of you, but I can't tell you how it's helped my day to day, hour to hour part of my life. At times, I know it's the only thing that get's me through the day.
We also talked about taking "blessing breaks" during the day. I think this steams from the 7 hours of prayer that the Monasteries do, but it wasn't mentioned in the book. Blessing breaks are times when your waiting in line, someone comes to mind, so you pray for them. They are times when you might be feeling overwhelmed with your day, you take a brief amount of time, focus on Christ, remembering his promises and how much he loves you and you ask for the grace to get through the next hour.
We also remember to have margins around our life. Everything should not be an emergency, if it is, you need to add some margins into what your doing, or possibly stop doing some of the stuff. If you don't have some breathing space in your life, you are headed for crash and burn. Along with margins, I think you need boundaries, sometimes with big flashing red flags along them! Now, I'm one to talk about boundaries, cuz for most of my life I thought most people had these and they would respect mine, even if they weren't defined. I am learning to turn my cell phone off at 10 and not to turn it back on until after Preacher man goes to work. I am also learning to protect my time with Preacher man and give "us" the evenings. Does this mean I won't answer the phone when it rings? Sometimes. Does it mean I don't care? No, it means I'm working within my boundaries.
So these are a few of the things that we chatted about and I feel they are things everyone needs to think about, sooner than later. God has a plan for each of us, and if we aren't making time to hear from Him, how do we know what He wants for us? God really isn't in a hurry.
Preacher man and I started a Sunday school class back in the summer sometime for new people joining the church. It's hard to "break in" to a class that has been together since the dawn of time and you don't know if you fit in or not. Our classes are broke into age groups which I feel is a sad thing, mainly cuz you don't get the advantage of walking through life with people who are different than you. There is something that a young mother can learn from a woman in her 70's who has already been there and done that. To counter, the 70 year old can become refreshed and interested in new ways of looking at things through the eyes of a young mother. I get it that you are more comfortable around people you "look" like, but your focus becomes narrow and so does your view of life.
We are reading "God isn't in a hurry" by Warren Wiersbe and it's a easy read with short chapters which makes it a doable Sunday school book. The chapter we covered this week was called "An hour at a time" and it talked about wasting time, not having time and what that looks like for each of us. So Preacher man asked what we all did for leisure in our life. This was a good thing for him to talk about, just coming off a week vacation. I was surprised to hear how many people 'relax' by turning on the TV. Can I ask you something? When was the last time you watched anything on TV that was relaxing? I'm not saying I don't watch TV, I'm saying it's not what I would consider relaxing. Relaxing to me is reading a book, taking a walk, sitting on the porch when the mosquitos are all dead, and things that help me unwind.
This brought up what does your day generally look like. A perfect morning for me would be getting up at 5, doing a treadmill session, walking the herd with Preacher man, fixing breakfast, having God time and the day begins after that. For about 13 years now I have been spending almost ever morning with God. It started out as 15 minutes and has moved into more like an hour to an hour and a half. I know that may seem crazy to some of you, but I can't tell you how it's helped my day to day, hour to hour part of my life. At times, I know it's the only thing that get's me through the day.
We also talked about taking "blessing breaks" during the day. I think this steams from the 7 hours of prayer that the Monasteries do, but it wasn't mentioned in the book. Blessing breaks are times when your waiting in line, someone comes to mind, so you pray for them. They are times when you might be feeling overwhelmed with your day, you take a brief amount of time, focus on Christ, remembering his promises and how much he loves you and you ask for the grace to get through the next hour.
We also remember to have margins around our life. Everything should not be an emergency, if it is, you need to add some margins into what your doing, or possibly stop doing some of the stuff. If you don't have some breathing space in your life, you are headed for crash and burn. Along with margins, I think you need boundaries, sometimes with big flashing red flags along them! Now, I'm one to talk about boundaries, cuz for most of my life I thought most people had these and they would respect mine, even if they weren't defined. I am learning to turn my cell phone off at 10 and not to turn it back on until after Preacher man goes to work. I am also learning to protect my time with Preacher man and give "us" the evenings. Does this mean I won't answer the phone when it rings? Sometimes. Does it mean I don't care? No, it means I'm working within my boundaries.
So these are a few of the things that we chatted about and I feel they are things everyone needs to think about, sooner than later. God has a plan for each of us, and if we aren't making time to hear from Him, how do we know what He wants for us? God really isn't in a hurry.
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