photo by Bohman
I just love being a devoted servant of God, spending all day in reverent focus upon His Word, calling upon His truths as I go about my day, living a life completely reflective of His glorious mercies and grace.
Except for the time I spend between getting up and going to bed. Then I have laundry to do and home school to teach and articles to write and bills to go over and kids to chauffer and a leaky toilet to attend to and….
Maybe I’m not as devoted as I think.
It seems like I spend a lot of time being a devoted Christian. I bet others think that way, too. My husband wanted to see just how devoted he was, because he thought he was spending a lot of time being a devoted Christian. He designed a little exercise that revealed more of the truth.
He put together this table and inserted time spent, in minutes, in each activity for a typical week. It looked kind of promising, actually. Until he compared it to the amount of time we have each week while we’re awake. The results were eye-opening.
Try it for yourself. Insert the amount of time you spend in each activity, in minutes, and total up the amount. Then divide that number by 6720, the number of minutes we have available to us if we actually get eight hours of sleep each night (I’ll wait a moment for your laughter to die down). That will give a percentage of time spent deliberately focused upon God.
What did you come up with? Were you surprised?
We used this with our children, about the time they were in middle school. Kids tend to inflate their perspective on things (not that we would ever do that), and so their initial estimates of how much time they spent in devoted focus with God were just a wee bit off compared to the actual numbers.
It was a great learning tool for all of us. It made us realize just how puffed up we were in our own thinking. I guess we’ll have to put our SuperChristian capes away for another day.
Fill in the table with as close an estimate of time spent in each activity as you can. Use it with your own family and email it to friends. Let them know where you got it from!
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3 comments:
Great post, Deb! I came up with something similar and used it in the book I'm writing. This is a great reminder for all of us to take stock of ourselves and see where we are wasting our time.
I also wanted to thank you for your comment on my blog about spending time in the Lord's presence. Those "things" love to invade our mental closet, don't they? Telling the Lord that you love Him over and over to drown out those invading thoughts is so good. I'm sure this blesses the Lord. I love to do the same or just say over and over, "I praise You, Lord!" They're all special times if spent in His presence. Blessings to you...
Thanks for your writings, Deb. They are very inspiring. I don't know how you do it. You are a true ambassador for the Lord. Keep it up - we need you to disciple us! - Sue
Lynn, I always love having you visit.
And Sue, your words are too kind, but I treasure your encouragement. :-)
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