What could it look like to better manage your time.

Avoid hurry but still be a productive busy?

Jesus was certainly busy, but the Gospels never show Him hurried —

So, what is the difference between busyness and being hurried?

• Being busy is an outward condition of the body occurring when we have many things to do. It is inevitable in modern Western culture. By itself, busy-ness is not lethal – can be productive.
• Being hurried is an inner condition of the soul where you're so preoccupied with yourself and your life and what’s around you, that you're unable to be fully present with God, with yourself and with other people and enjoy them.

So, what is causing all of our hurry?

There are many answers, some external and some internal but practically our hurry stems from our failure to “count the cost” and properly manage our time.

LUKE 14:28-30 says "But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, “There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!"

Sounds like a typical Tuesday for most of us — biting off way more than we can chew in a 24-hour time period.

There is an important teaching on this in MARK 11:11, 15. It reads: “So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the Temple. After looking around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon. Then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples…When they arrived back in Jerusalem, (the next day) Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves,…”

• Jesus' plan all along was to flip some tables and drive out the vendors turning the temple into a “den of robbers”.
• Why didn’t He do this the night before - why the next day?
• He basically said — “It can wait until tomorrow” —
• He counted the cost and knew adding more to His already busy day would have tipped the scales from busy to hurry!

Jesus said in John 11:9 “’There are twelve hours of daylight every day. During the day people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world. But at night there is danger of stumbling because they have no light.’” 

The Cambridge Bible commentary translates this like this: “Are there not twelve working-hours in which a man may labor without fear of stumbling? I have not yet reached the end of my working-day, and so I can safely continue the work I came to do. The night is coming when I can no longer work, but that time hasn’t come yet.”

The “night” was, in this verse, an evening in His 24 hours.

Jesus was highly motivated to finish His work as a means of glorifying the Father, and that led Him to be wildly productive and busy as long as He lived. However, he still knew when to call it a night. To hang up his robe and kick off his sandals. We can learn to do that as well. Below is an example of the Hebrew Day Planner.

THE HEBREW DAY PLANNER
6:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. – Work 6 days a week.
6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. – Rest, eat, enjoy family/friends.
10:00 p.m. – 6:00 a.m. – Rest and sleep
One day/week – “Sabbath” – “Day of Rest”

Now your day does not need to include 12 hours of work. Depending on your profession you may need to flip the time frames if you work evenings. This is not a hard and fast rule but meant to be a guide to give you the "busy" life, not the "hurried" life. 

Here you see an example of Pastor Brandon's calendar. 

If you look closely he is very intentional with his time. His calendar looks like this every week.

However, if you call him up and request a meeting he knows exactly what time frame to put that in to not disrupt the rest of his day. (Now emergencies happen, thats life. Keeping a schedule like this, however, frees him from getting over-whelmed with tasks, meetings and more.) He can also more freely rearrange as needed as emergencies arise. 

Every Wednesday we alternate ' Daughter Date Nights' with Finley. So every other week whoever is not doing 'Daughter Date Night' gets a "free night" to do as they please. Meet up with friends, be a bum in the house alone, whatever suits us that evening. 

We also have open nights during the week/weekend so if a friend, couple or family wants to meet up then we can easily pencil them in one those evenings. 

Now you may look at this and say "WOW, his schedule is so BUSY!" and yes it is! However, what it is not is hurried!

It's intentional.

We know what we value, not only in our work schedules but our schedule as a family. We have the freedom to complete not just our work tasks, but our home tasks and have fun together as a family. 

Now does this happen every week? Absolutely not. There are times where we too, take too much on. This week being one of them! We have a double date night Thursday. A ministry team fun night on Friday. Breakfast with grandparents on Saturday morning AND a sleepover with one of Finley's friends Saturday afternoon/evening! But with proper planning (we hope!) we won't feel rushed through the end of our week. However, one thing I know we will be able to say by Sunday is that we were blessed by all the time spent with friends and family that enrich our lives.

So give something like this a try if you feel like you just can't break the cycle of always feeling hurried. It may take a few trys to get something that works for you and your family. Ours still gets tweaked here and there, but overall we know what we are doing and when. . . and nothing is more freeing than having knowledge that our time is managed to the best of our ability but definately to the glory of God.