Gospel.com Blog

Are you so wrapped up in the “schedule” of your life, work, and ministry that you risk missing the unexpected opportunities God sends your way?

Blaine Smith describes following God’s timing as one of the great challenges of the Christian life. It’s easy for us to get so focused on what we think God has planned for us, that we aren’t prepared to take advantage of unplanned ministry openings. He points to Jesus’ ministry as an example of a life lived in accordance with God’s timing:

Much of Jesus ministry was a sanctified response to interruptions. Take a typical day: After teaching a large crowd for a long time, he breaks for time alone, only to have his disciples ask him to explain his parables (Mk 4:10). That evening, while traveling in a boat, they awake him to deal with an unruly storm (Mk 4:38), and when they arrive at the other side of the lake, Jesus is confronted by a man with multiple demons (Mk 5:1-13). In each of these cases, Jesus responds immediately to those who need his help.

Many opportunities, both for serving Christ and for experiencing his provision for our own needs, come packaged in unwelcome interruptions. We need to pray constantly for alertness to these openings when they confront us. Without such awareness, were likely to lag behind Gods timing.

Is there an “interruption” knocking at your door right now, threatening to divert you from the careful plan you’ve set for yourself? It’s worth asking yourself if it’s truly a diversion, or if God is presenting you with an unexpected opportunity to serve Him.

Everybody’s busy these days. You’re busy; I’m busy; I don’t know if I’ve encountered anybody in my adult life who wasn’t busy balancing work, school, childcare, travel, and all the other usual suspects.

Busy-ness is a part of our lives, and it’s not very practical or helpful to insist that we simply stop being busy. But it is nevertheless critically important that we not let the hectic pace of our lives pull us away from God. That’s the topic of this devotional from Words of Hope:

Many of us are terribly busy. Our hectic pace of life spins like a merry-go-round, threatening to throw us off completely. So we go to the opposite extreme. We “veg” out, passively watching program after program on TV. Yet somehow this inactivity fails to give us the rest we seek.

Rest is not simply inactivity. It’s also a state of being. Both work and sleep are blessings, but they cannot cure the restlessness of our hearts. Augustine put it well when he said: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” King David celebrated this deep sense of rest in Psalm 16. The refuge he found in God centered his whole being.

Read the rest of the devotional at Words of Hope.

There are two messages in this devotional that I very much needed to hear today. One is that laziness isn’t just a matter of sitting around doing nothing; in our world of constant distraction, you can keep terrifically “busy” but still manage to neglect the things you ought to be doing.

Secondly, there’s more to spiritual and emotional “R&R” than simply sleeping in on the odd Saturday morning. (My sleeping-in, video-game playing college self could have benefited from this message a decade ago.) Just as you can be lazy while keeping “busy,” you can also sit around doing nothing—our culture’s idea of “rest”—and not find spiritual refreshment.

The solution, of course, is to turn to God himself, who promises “rest for your souls” if we but turn to him. How busy are you today? Where do you find your rest—and is it the pure, renewing rest that God provides?

With Thanksgiving on the horizon and Christmas not far beyond that, 2008 is drawing to a close—but for college students, it might seem like the end of the semester is infinitely far off. Are you swamped with classwork, midterm exams, research papers, and the general craziness of campus life? StudentSoul.org has gathered several good articles to help keep focused, both academically and spiritually:

• The Everything Trap—do you feel like you’re trying to spin too many plates? Read Dennis Anderson’s thoughts on managing the things you
• How to Care for Your Soul—real spiritual help for your hectic everyday life.
• Busy Sickness—why are we so busy all the time? Some thoughts on busyness, and how to keep it from running you into the ground.

There are many other good resources for students over at StudentSoul.org, so if you’re feeling overwhelmed at school, take a look!

Ever felt stressed? Like the whole world was asking you to do something for them? Like the very things that you call good in your life are the things that are most stifling?

Well, here’s an article I ran across from the Narramore Christian Foundation’s Psychology for Living site called, “Say No to Burnout” that you should read.

Here’s a few insights from it:

When I discovered that burning out was not God’s will for my life, one of my biggest problems was, “How do I say no?” I quickly learned that I could not wait for people to approve of my saying no. I couldn’t wait for their permission or for someone else to do the task in my place. I simply had to say no, whether or not anyone but God Himself understood.

And:

I have found that friends who are committed to burnout will, of course, urge me to burn out with them! They may even try to make me feel guilty if I don’t become involved in activities which in themselves are good, but which may add too great a burden to my already overextended schedule. In the process I’ve discovered that the advice of even godly friends is only as valid as their own perspective on burnout.