Someone recently asked me this question on the Internet. The question wasn’t, “how do you, Kevin, do it all?” The question was, with all of life’s demands, (i.e. God, work, home, and recreation) how do you balance it all, keep up with it all, do it all? It is a good question and a question that we need to consider from time to time. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the subject of “time management.” There are many who have written books on the subject and provided valuable insight in that regard. However, I do want to set forth some biblical principles that help us as we struggle to keep our lives in balance with all of the things we daily have to do.
First, we must recognize that we can’t “do it all.” A lot of times we set unreasonable expectations for ourselves. As a result, we end up trying to do too much with too little time and resources. While it is often difficult, it is no sin to say “no” to someone’s request of your time. God never commanded us to do “everything.” What God did command is that if you say you will do something then keep your word and do it (Matthew 5:37). This isn’t always easy for us to do either and sometimes we commit to things to which we should have said no. In such situations, we simply must apologize and move on.
Second, we need to prioritize our activities. Of course, God always demands to be first in the decisions we make in our lives (Matthew 6:33, 22:37). Everything we say and do should be done with the goal of seeking Him in mind. If we do that, then God sets certain priorities for us. God expects us to show love for the church (Hebrews 13:1). God expects us to love our families (Ephesians 5:25, 6:4, Titus 2:4, 5). God expects us to provide for our families (1 Timothy 5:8). God expects us to behave appropriately with our employers (Ephesians 6:5). God expects us to show respect toward our nation and her leaders (1 Peter 2:17) and to love our fellow man (Matthew 22:39). God helps us prioritize if we will let Him lead our us.
Third, we need to set reasonable, accomplishable, yet challenging goals. For example, it would be unreasonable to say that with a handful of people we are going to knock on every door in Arkansas in a day. Setting unreasonable goals tends to discourage instead of encourage. But neither should we set goals that are so simplistic and accomplishable that we never grow in our involvement with the church. We need to have goals that we can accomplish with the talents that we collectively possess but that also challenge those collective talents. In the parable of the talents, to each was given according to their ability, yet it was still a challenge (Matthew 25:15).
Fourth, focus upon one task at a time instead of the whole project. The old adage, “How do you eat an elephant?” is appropriate. The answer: “One bite at a time.” When you look at a project as a whole, it often appears as if it will never get done. The more we focus upon that, the more we get discouraged in working on the project. Instead, we need to break down the project into tasks and focus upon the singular items one at a time. Before we know it, the entire project will be complete. Jesus said in Matthew 6:34 that we have enough worries simply trying to keep up with the things that we need to do today. And that’s exactly what we should do, take one day at a time.
Finally, there’s a song from the movie Mary Poppins that we should consider as well. “Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.” When we find ourselves with tasks that we don’t want to do or tasks that are difficult either physically or emotionally, we should seek to see the good that will come from doing such tasks and then focus upon the good, not the bad. We can always rejoice in that we are seeking to serve God in everything we do and not man. Glorifying God in our lives should be an overriding cause for us to be happy doing the distasteful things of life (1 Corinthians 10:31).
This obviously doesn’t exhaust the subject, but it does give us some principles to consider as we seek to be pleasing to God and influential for good to our fellow man. Let us then round out each of these scriptural truths with prayer on our part for wisdom to apply each of these principles appropriately each day.