Life

We lead very busy lives. Although we all lead separate and distinct lives, one thing that most of us have in common is that we are busy.  Here are some of the things that occupy our time:

Work

Kids(taking them to school, sporting events, school events, etc.)

Eating (and making the food we eat)

Television(or other electronic devices)

Sleep

Mowing the lawn and doing other outdoor maintenance issues

Cleaning the house and doing dishes and laundry

The list goes on and on.  It doesn’t take long to fill in all 24 hours.  Then we do it again the next day . . . and the day after that.  And so on . . . and so on. We are BUSY people. 

Being Godly

Now that we have a better understanding of just how busy we are and why we are so busy, let’s take a look at some other important things.

How much of our time is spent on God-centered things?  How much of our time is spent with godly people(i.e. Christians) outside those that may be in our own home?  Do we just see Christians on Sunday morning and that’s it?  That’s pretty sad if that is the case.  Considering the influence we experience from our surrounding environment, shouldn’t we intentionally put some good sources of influence in our day?  If not, then all we have is bad influences around ourselves, all day, every day(except that hour or so on Sunday morning).  If you find yourself in this situation, I’m not suggesting that the problem is unsolvable, but it is a problem that we need to work on, and it is probably a problem that many of God’s people need to work on.

Thou Shalt Not

Being a faithful child of God is way more than just a matter of not doing bad things(i.e. sin).  We also need to do good things.  One of those things we need to do is be an encouragement to other Christians.  Hebrews 10:24-25 tells us that we should not neglect meeting together, as times that we meet together are times that we can encourage one another(spur on one another to love and good works).  This is typically thought of as referring to meeting for worship services, like on Sunday morning.  But I don’t think this is exclusive to group worship services.  Why?  Encouraging others toward love and good works is something that can happen at a worship service or with just one other person you are visiting at their home.  I am not suggesting that going to someone’s home is the only way; the ways in which we can encourage each other to do good and loving things is endless.  So, do we spend enough time with others?

Spending Time

Here is the rub.  Time.  We just don’t have much left after that long, laundry list of things we have to do(including laundry).  We just don’t have much time left in our days.  And let’s not forget how tired we get . . . because we are so busy.  We have time, but with the way we live our lives, the amount of time we have each day is severely whittled down.  How do we fix it?

Fixing the Time Problem

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things we have to do:  sleep, work, feed ourselves, take care of children(if we have them).  These are all important things that have to be done.  If we stop feeding ourselves, we won’t last long.  If we stop sleeping, we will die even sooner.  And cutting back your sleep time could be possible, but most Americans barely get enough sleep as it is.  Any less would have negative health consequences, if they are not already there yet.  But some things we can reduce.

Recreational activities certainly have their place and can be beneficial to us, physical, mentally or both.  But is an area in our lives that we might need to trim, just to be able to have time to do things that are more important, or at least should be more important for people who claim to follow Jesus.

For people with children, a lot of children are over-scheduled.  When those activities interfere with our ability to promote good works and encourage others, we need to figure out how to reduce them. 

Before We Can Fix the Problem

In order to encourage others, we need to know them.  It’s hard to be an encouragement to someone else when you just don’t know them.   Yes, you know their name, but you don’t really know much about them because you don’t really know them.  You might spend time with them at a church building, but you’re not having a conversation with them during that time, so how can you get to know them?

We need to spend enough time speaking with people to get to know them.  And this takes time.  A five-minute conversation once will not give you all the information you need.  You will need to have longer conversations over the course of time . . . like years.  I’m not suggesting that you cannot get to know someone for years, but rather that it will be a lengthy process to get to know someone AND continue to learn more and more about them, as they change over time.  You are not the same person you were years ago, and neither is anyone else.  There is an old saying by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “You can’t step into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and you’re not the same man.”  Over the course of time people and things both change.  We might get to know someone today, but they’ll be different later.  We need continued interaction, or all our hard work will be for naught.

Things We Cannot Do

Here are some important things we cannot do if we do not know someone.  These are important things that can have eternal repercussions.

• We can’t encourage people we don’t know(or at least we are very limited).
• We can’t pray for people we don’t know(or at least we are very limited).
• We can’t hold other people accountable if we don’t know them. If we want other people to be godly, we are going to need to know them.  And if they are being ungodly, we need to let them know, not so we can demoralize them, but so we can encouragement them to draw closer to God.
• Other people cannot hold us accountable, if they do not know us. No one likes to be told they are doing something wrong, but as God’s people, we should appreciate the love that is behind that correction(or the love that should be behind that correction).  We should WANT other people to let us know if we are doing something wrong because we should want to be godly, we should want to spend eternity with God.

Conclusion

We need to get to know people.  In order to do that, we need to spend time with people.  We need to find out how we can help them draw closer to God.  That will draw us closer to them.  And since this will take time, we need to make time.  Each of us is different, so each of us will need to figure out how to do this, but it is something we all need to work on.  Life is busy.  And if we are not careful, it can pass us by so quickly.  Let’s resolve to MAKE time for others . . . and to use that time to help others in whatever way(s) we can.