The Correct Way to Live Your Schedule — Merle Burkholder

We often think about the different things, commitments we have in life. Like we have our commitment to God, we have our family, we have our work, our ministry, and then there's other things in life. And we say, well, God is most important. And then second number two is my family, and number three is work. And, but then work seems to take up so much more time than maybe some of the other things. And, and so how does that all work? And, and I think the way I like to think about it is not so much a list of a one, two, three list, but a pie graph. And my life, I have slices of my life for different things.

And I have the slice where I'm working on my relationship with God, and I'm fellowshipping with Him. I have the slice for my family. I have a slice for ministry, and I may have different ministries that I'm involved with, and each one of them has a, a slice.

And when I'm in that slice, that is my number one priority. And I want to be fully present in that slice. Because one of the things that happens is we have three or four or five things going on in different areas of our life, and we're in this moment, but we're thinking we have these wheels turning about three or four other things. And so we're only half of our attention is here, and our energy's being drained by these other things that we know we need to do or that we, something's going to have to be done about. We can't do anything about it right now, but we're, some of our mental energy and emotional energy is going into those things rather than being fully present in the moment where we are.

And there's a great little, um, uh, pamphlet by Charles Hommel called The Tyranny of the Urgent. And he talks about how Jesus, you never get the, you never get the feeling that Jesus was in a hurry. Like He doesn't, you don't, we don't ever read about Him telling the disciples, come on, pick up the pace here a little bit. Like we are going to get to Bethlehem or whatever. Like it's just, no, they're walking around and, and then He'd have these interruptions and people would, like the blind man's calling to Him and saying, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And He's on His way to, uh, from Jericho to Jerusalem. And, and yet He, He, He pauses in that moment, and that blind man gets His full attention just, just for a bit, but He's fully present right there in that moment.

And then He goes on to what else He's been doing. And I just think, and at the end of Jesus' life, He said to the Father, I finished the work that You gave me to do. There were still lots of blind people. There were still lots of people that hadn't, didn't believe that He was the Messiah, but somehow He had the confidence that I finished the work that You gave me to do. And being able to discern what is it that God wants me to do, because not every opportunity is a call. Um, there are things that need to be done, but someone else needs to do it. And to recognize that I could do it, but being discerning, is this something that God wants me to do?

And, and that's a challenge to, because today we have so many opportunities and there's so many things that need to be done. But just sensing that these are the things that I'm responsible, these are the responsibilities I've accepted. And when I'm in that moment to be fully present there and engage in that, let the other things go for now and, and just be fully present right here in this moment.