What is most important in my life? It’s a question that must first be tackled before a schedule can be made. I shared the “Christian” answer last week in a post.
- God
- My husband
- My children
- My friends
- My job
I would like to say that my life looks very close to this list. But it was a discussion in my Bible study that opened my eyes to the distant “Christian” answer and my lived-out daily life.
A lady in my study said, “If my husband is not before my children, then God is not first.” We went on to discuss that if our quiet time is not first and foremost in our lives, then in actuality God is not the most important person in our lives.
To say that God is top in my life means whatever falls below Him must be in a biblical order of importance.
No matter how we rank the important things/people in our lives, how we spend our day is what actually says what is most important to us.
Last week, I asked you to calculate how you spend your week. Not how you think or want to spend your 168 hours but how you truly spend you days.
Here are my calculations:
Sleep – 56 Hours
Work – 40 Hours
House (Laundry, Clean, Meals) – 28 Hours
Kiddos (Reading, Play, School Work) – 16 Hours
Devo/Church – 7 Hours
Me (Exercise, Facebook, Shower, Phone, Friends) – 11 Hours
Husband – 4 Hours
Drive Time – 6 Hours
Total – 168
While each week looks a little different, I believe that these hours are a pretty good representation of where I spend my time. Placing it into a spreadsheet was eye-opening for me.
Let’s divide the list out.
God – 7 Hours
Husband – 4 Hours
Kiddos – 16 Hours
Work – 40 Hours
Home – 28 Hours
Me – 11 Hours
I’ve got the bell-curve-thing going on!
It shows me that some areas are heavier than I want; other areas are weak. Changes need to occur or I will have regrets later on. Time to match up what I believe to be important and how I spend my hours. …And that is where we will begin in tomorrow’s post!
I can already see the wheels turning in your mind about “the season of life” you are in and how “me” time is important. But I would ask that you hold those thoughts because I hope to cover many of them in the next few posts.
Tomorrow: How to Set a Schedule that You Can Be Proud Of
How do you spend your 168 hours?
In line with thinking about upping the hours we spend with God, a friend of mine recently shared an excerpt from Philip Yancey's book, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? I'll share with you what he shared with me:
"Conversation can be a prayer. Think of the Samaritan woman at the well, talking with Jesus about water and mountains and Jerusalem – wasn't that a prayer? I like to think of my conversations with people as prayer. I speak to Jesus within a person. I ask, Lord, let this lunch or tea or whatever be a prayer. When I read the Bible, that's a prayer. I don't read Psalm 73, I pray Psalm 73. I willingly refer my actions to God, and in so doing they become a prayer.
"I'm a painter. I pray as I paint, and my painting becomes a kind of prayer. If someone asks me for help in prayer, I tell them to find what they most enjoy and do that, only do it for the glory of God. For you it may be writing or climbing a mountain. Ask God to remind you, as you do it, that you're doing it for him. Often as I'm doing what I enjoy, specific requests come to mind. I pray instantly, as soon as something comes to mind, and I trust God to bring it to mind.
"Spending time with God is what's important. We spend the time anyway. Why not recognize that we spend it with God, and then act like it?"
This gave me a lot of insight into what I think "prayer" is and although I love my quiet time with God, this reminded me to be present with Him ALL the time. I know I still have a LONG way to go before I reach 112 hours in a week of wakeful time with God, but just reading that has encouraged me to strive for more.
Pray without ceasing! Thank you for sharing.
my husband and I have talked about "me time" a lot recently. If we are to follow Jesus' example, he didn't exactly have any me time. When he was alone he was praying. So when you look at it that way, me time is putting our focus on the wrong place. Dang. That stinks. Easier said than done — I could really use some me time right now! 😉
That is an interesting thought! Thank you for sharing this. I am going to be covering this topic next week do I will be praying about this. Thank you!
Sleeping 49
Eating 23
Fixing meals 21
Laundry 4
Showering, bathing changing girls 20
Facebook 7
Playing with kiddos 25
Surfing the internet 7
Exercise 2
Planning activities for the kiddos 7
One-on-one time with the hubby 3
I pray that this was helpful to you and the rest of the points in this series will encourage you!