How Was Your Weekend? (The Best Use of Your Downtime)
Everyone in North America is coming off a long weekend (Happy Canada Day and Independence Day)! Here’s what I’m hoping you got: some down time to power your up time. I think that’s the best use of down time.
We’re all living life on mission. There are two ways we misuse down time or time off.
The first way is to think it’s all about our pleasure with no greater end in mind. If we see downtime that way, we tend to think that life should be an all-inclusive resort, catering to our every need and pleasure. It’s basically laziness dressed up with money. And there isn’t much biblical or rewarding about it. No matter how rested and refueled you are, a life lived pointed at yourself is a life that’s only as big as you are, which is, frankly, not very big. Self-indulgence is just selfishness with lipstick.
The second way to misuse time off is not to take it – either to keep working, or to feel guilty, or to push through our off time thinking that time off is for wimps and people who can’t handle a real pace. But if you don’t refuel yourself emotionally, spiritually, physically and relationally, you’ll get back to the mission with nothing to give. I’ve been there from time to time. And I remind myself of this: a bankrupt person can never be generous. You can only give what you’ve got.
While I tend toward the second misuse of down time, I see both as pandemic.
That’s why I’m reminding myself that the best thing I can do is care for myself. Spend some time nurturing my heart, my relationship with God, my family, some key relationships, working out and having some fun. Some of the the healthiest, most life-giving people I know are people who have a lot to give in their up-time because they have surrendered their down time to the greater mission. They relax, take care of themselves, and even have fun realizing all of that is rebuilding their reserves so that when they’re back at work, back in life, back in ministry, they have something to give. And if I’m honest, it’s been a while. So I need to switch it up for the rest of the summer.
What’s the best use of your down time? What refuels you? What are you learning about this?
I think the next hardest thing to do while aiming to maintain this balance is doing so while everyone is expecting more time and energy spent “for God”. As I’m reading _Introverts in The Church_ I’m even more encouraged and convicted that I need to spend more focus on managing my energy than my time, yet our culture measures what is done in time. However, to work with time and yet outside of time is what God is calling us to do, otherwise we become a slave to time instead of a servant of Christ, n’est-ce pas?
Ada…thanks. You raise some great points. Bill Hybel’s quote that ‘doing the work of God is destroying the work of God in me” still rings true for many church leaders. I think activity ‘for God’ is often confused with spiritual growth. God commands us to spend at least one seventh of our live resting. Churches often ignore this (and I do too).
Showing up empty is a pale substitute for showing up with joy and filled with the Spirit. I think doing what you need to do to stay fully alive and engaged is critical. Six hours of our best energy is worth more than 12 hours dragging ourselves through a day just trying to show up.
Maybe you get to help others see there’s a new way to manage energy, time and relationship with God!