How to Sandwich God Into Your Busy Schedule Part One: Get Your Head on Straight

How to Sandwich God into Your Busy Schedule
Part One: Get Your Head on Straight
by Wendy Elizabeth Middleton

Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." Haggai 1:5-6

Does this sound familiar? You drag yourself off to work, you come home bone weary and you still can’t seem to pay the bills. Why? Could it be that, like the Israelites who returned from exile, you have your priorities on backwards?
King Solomon’s Temple was a vision of splendor. It was the throne of God in the middle of God’s people. But God’s people turned to idols, golden images that were not God, and the kingdom was divided and fell into ruin and was conquered and the Temple was destroyed.

In 538 B.C. Cyrus king of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. 50,000 Jews journeyed home and began work on the temple. Around 536 B.C. the foundation was completed. There was a great celebration. See Ezra 3:10-11

But after the foundation was laid the people stopped working on the temple. They turned instead to their own homes and businesses. And the foundation lay empty for 18 years.

Then God sent Haggai to give the people a poke. “Give careful thought to your ways.”

They had worked hard, but what had it earned them?
Their crops were unsuccessful.
Their money disappeared as soon as they earned it.
Why? Haggai asked.

Because they had their priorities out of order. They needed to put God first. They needed to rebuild his temple, the temple that symbolized God’s presence, and Israel’s priorities.

Give careful thought to your ways. All of your ways. You believe in God. Great! That is your foundation. But how many years have you spent building your home and neglecting the house of God, the symbol of your priorities? Where do you spend the most time and money?

There are 168 hours in the week. If you work a 40-hour week, with an hour commute either way, that leaves 114 hours per week.

According to a Nielson report, US adults are watching five hours and four minutes of television on average per day. That’s over 35 hours, almost as much time as we spend at work. Now we are down to 75 hours.

The body requires at least 7 hours of sleep per day for good overall health, but nearly a third of the population in the US are not getting enough sleep according to the CDC so let’s assume 6 hours of sleep per day. Now we are down to 33 hours per week.

Shopping, cooking, cleaning, eating, checking emails, balancing the checkbook, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, the Super Bowl, the World Series, reading the latest novel, playing solitaire and a thousand other things have to be sandwiched into those 33 hours.

So where is God?

“Give careful thought to your ways” and not just some of them, all of them. Consider the way you earn your money, and the way that you spend it. Consider the television shows that you watch and the amount of time you spend watching them. Consider your bills and how much you spend on impulse buying.

You only have so much time and so much money. Carefully think about how you spend both. The best way to save both time and money is to put yourself on a budget. Larry Burkett wrote a great book about budgeting called The Financial Planning Workbook. Getting on and staying within a budget will free you up in all kinds of ways. Knowing exactly how much money you need a month will help open up job options. Carefully consider where, when and how much you work because this directly impacts your time budget.

You need a time budget for those 168 hours. Seriously look at your week and see where you are spending your time. Color in your work schedule, and don’t forget the commute time. If you work on Sunday, and a lot of people do, then see if there isn’t a weekly Bible study or Wednesday night service that you can attend. Don’t miss out on that terrific in pouring of the Spirit on a weekly basis. The Sabbath was made for man, because man can’t work 7 days a week. If you only have one day off per week don’t forget to keep it Holy. Find one day to give to God.

This is where the Budget really helps. Schedule all of your chores into six days. Shopping, laundry, house cleaning all of it in 6 days. Then devote the 7th day to serious God time.

Both budgets go hand in hand. You will be surprised how much time you can free up when you work within a financial budget.

Do you Need an unlimited data, talk and texting plan, or do you Need a flip phone with 911 on speed dial?

Do you Need 200 channels that you never watch or do you Need the local news and weather?

Do you Need an X-box? Do you Need to eat out three times a week? Do you Need to go to the movies once a week?

We are called to be living sacrifices, this implies giving up some of the things that we want and choosing the will of God over our own. We are called to be self-controlled, this implies that we spend our time and money wisely.

Give careful thought to your ways. Budget your time and your money.

Living on a financial budget isn’t easy. We see it, we want it and we whip out the credit card. But on a budget we exercise self control and we do not spend.

Living on a time budget isn’t easy either. Sometimes we have to choose which activities to do and which to eliminate. The TV is a big distraction. How often do you find yourself channel surfing and not really finding anything interesting on, but you leave the TV on anyway?

Choose a few shows. See which channels those shows come on. See if your provider has a smaller package with those channels. Now you’ve saved time and money. But here’s the really hard part, when your shows aren’t on turn the TV off. The sudden silence can be unnerving; good habits take some getting use to. but now, without the distraction, you can open your Bible and really pay attention to the word of God.

Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways.”

Simple – Ain’t – Easy
But it sure is worth the effort
- Wendy