Thrusday

Buffer Your Schedule

In preparation for a decade of destiny, we've been talking about the need to be physically healthy - that God wants us to take care of our bodies. And I want to stress one more time that unrelenting stress harms our bodies.

Why do we wait until our health plummets before we decide to create margin in our lives? The Bible teaches that your body needs downtime in order to heal and re-energize.

Listen to why this is so important: when you're overloaded by activity, you can only think of yourself. You're in survival mode, just trying to make it through another day. And that limits your usefulness in ministry!

When you have no downtime or margin in your life and God taps you on the shoulder, saying, "I'd like you to do this for me," your first response isn't joy. Your first response is, "Oh, no! Another thing to do! Sorry, God -- I'd like to do that, but I'm just too busy."

We end up resenting the great opportunities God brings into our lives. But when we deliberately and specifically add downtime into our lives, we become available for God to use us as we head into this decade of destiny.

You don't have to live on overload. You don't have to live in survival mode. Begin today to build a buffer around your schedule. Then enjoy the benefits of margin -- and see what God does next!

People can be extremely busy, causing them a lot of stress. And stress isn't good for us. Whenever people are in stress, they only focus on themselves. And when God asks them to do something, they end up ignoring it and continuing what they are doing. God gave us so many opportunities, and we end up denying them due to the stress. We shouldn't be stressing all the time. We should create a downtime each day so we can relax and do what God wants us to do. Then, stress wouldn't be harming our bodies and we would be healthy.

Take the opportunity that God gives you.
Most will either have the problem of hesitance or hastiness.
This probably comes from laziness. I'm pretty sure everyone has procrastinated sometime in their life, it may still be a problem to you now. As we all know, pushing things back just because you want temporary freedom will end up causing you more trouble than its worth in the end.
Always think about the long term and be wise.
So when you are given instructions, no matter how big or small, be diligent and ready.
When God wants you to do something, do not hesitate and go for it at the right time. God will know when you're ready. So don't worry.

~Audrey~

I'm not actually that busy, although I sometimes like to tell myself that I am as an excuse to not do things. Realistically, I could spend 2 hours praying and reading the bible and 1 hour exercising everyday and still get all my school work done. I'm just really lazy and I suck at time management. So what I got from this is too stop being so lazy and actually obey God when he tells me to do something.

TIME MANAGEMENT! BUFFERING YOUR SCHEDULE! HAVING INITIATIVE!
Managing your time and leaving certain times for fun, work, and being active are all great ways to benefit yourself, others, and God. By doing this, you will be able to have a general idea of how your day goes, know when to do what, and ultimately have a smoother, easier day. That being said, this will most likely reduce a lot of stress that is compiled on to us by things such as school work, lack of sleep, etc. Thus, leaving us with more time to love, worship and glorify God! It is not very hard to set up a schedule for yourself, and by having a schedule I do not necessarily mean being like a robot and having exact times for doing things. But having a general sense of what you are doing is never a bad thing. Also, as this devo says, when you are overloaded and bombarded with activities throughout your day, you forget about God and usually focus on yourself. Which is a bad thing, because this can become a habit, and we will start to develop the mentality that we do not have time for God, even though we are all capable of managing time for God. There should never be a time in our lives when we push God aside and say that we do not have time for God. It all depends on how much you want to have a relationship with Him, keeping the end goal in mind. This also relates back to Pastor Sam's sermon on asking yourself how badly do you want it? I refer back to this sermon a lot because it is very applicable to our lives. I remember at one point in the sermon where he says something like this: When you are at the point of where you want to be successful as much as you want to breathe and take in air, then you will be successful. This should be applied to us, as in: If we want God in our lives and want to build a relationship with Him, we should make a solid effort by giving our ALL for Him.
                 

I think that this devotion can be very applicable to us all, in one way or another.

If you are in the category of,"I'm too busy to do anything else," then you should re-evaluate what is really necessary. Maybe there are certain things in our lives that are not really important to do, that we can stop doing. And while we might feel that we are really busy all the time, we still somehow manage to always have time to go on Facebook, check our phones, eat, and sleep. So we need to evaluate our priorities. Is being devoted to God and spending time praying and/or reading His word less important than getting an hour less sleep? Or spending an hour less online?

And If you are in the category of, "I don't have too many things to actually do, but I'm bad at time management." I would say to learn to manage your time by following a schedule. If you've ever noticed how much work or how many things can be done in a day during a retreat or even during school, it's because they follow a general schedule. I can personally say that setting specific times for certain things not only reminds you to do those things, it makes room in your day for them and gives you motivation to do them, because of the reminder that,"10:30 is devo time." Even if you don't follow a schedule, just make sure to explicitly make time in your day for whatever it is you need to do.

As mentioned in the devo, too many things to do causes a lot of stress. The stress not only makes us unhealthy, but it makes us unhappy. Therefore we need to learn to somehow fit everything that is important into our lives, while making sure that there is some room in our time, and that we aren't overworked.

Prioritize what you do, cut back on what isn't good, and be productive with your time.

This speaks volumes to me once again, because time management is not my specialty. I have the most horrible work ethics.
However, I feel like this devo is urging me to be more time-efficient! Like what Jessie (9) said, I actually have so much time everyday, but the way I
use it, eventually leaves me with nothing done. God may be calling me and urging me to do something, like talk to him for instance, but I, in my laziness,
am ignoring God and wasting my time.
I agree wholeheartedly with what the devo says: stress is actually more detrimental to our physical health than we think it is.
My experience with stress was not pretty at all; I have collapsed once from exhaustion and stress.
SO DON'T STRESS!