It’s funny how monotonous and lackluster life can be at times: work, eat, sleep, repeat. I don’t know about you, but it can feel like I am running a marathon on some metaphorical hamster wheel, out of breath from all the constant physical exertion but going nowhere. I am sure that we have all had days (ahem, or months) like this. The problem is that, once your in that dull, boring rut, it can be hard to climb out.
As a full-time college student, writer, homemaker, wife, mother, daycare provider, and part-time housekeeper/elder caregiver, you would think that life would be far from lackluster for me. Since every day is filled something different, there must be some variety, right? Wrong.
Each morning, I wake up and childproof for the daycare. Then, I get my son up and ready for school. Once work arrives at 7, I spend 30 minutes multitasking: watching toddlers and trying to have a dialogue with my husband over a cup of coffee through their pleas for Little Baby Bum or Cocomelon. This is usually a chore since my husband watches the news in the morning. Then, my family is off to work/school and, for the next eight hours, I am entertaining kiddos.
In between 4:00 and 4:30, my wonderful toddlers leave and I have 15 minutes to get the house back in working order before my family returns. Then it’s dinner prep, cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, laundry, showers, and bed… for everyone but me. Sprinkle in the 3-4 nights a week that I help my 90-year-old grandmother, my biweekly cleaning business, school EVERY Saturday ALL day to make up for the weeks worth of schoolwork missed, our current home remodel, doctor’s appointments, and holidays (including birthdays), any sort of free time is absolutely shot. And forget getting sick. LOL. Work, eat, sleep, repeat.
The trouble with ruts like this is that it zaps the life and joy from everything we do. Eventually, we begin doing things with the sole purpose of checking it off the to-do list. The things that once brought us so much joy and happiness quickly become an exhausting chore. Soon, family gets pushed to the back burner just so that we can keep up with all of our commitments. Then, our time with God — the only who can order our steps and add variety and color to our lives — begins to dwindle.
“The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.” 2 Timothy 1:7.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we favor the negligible things over the things that actually matter? And why do we build our lives like a house of cards, knowing that adding one more will cause everything to fall to the floor? This is not what God desired for our lives. He wanted our days to be so much more than work, eat, sleep, repeat.
The scripture offers us an instruction manual for how God wants us to live out our lives. He does not place himself in the background. God is meant for the foreground of our lives. Only He can bring life back from the lackluster, monotonous ruts that we’ve dug for ourselves.
Exodus 20:8-11, reminds us to keep the Sabbath day. God commands us to work — just as He did in the creation of the Heavens, the earth, and all it’s inhabitants — for six days. Then, on the seventh day, He requires we rest.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20:8-11.
The Sabbath day was God’s way of providing rest for us. He did not want our lives to become work, eat, sleep, repeat. But, foreseeing that it would, He gave us a day of rest, dedicated to worshipping Him. Why don’t we take it?! Why do we insist on filling even our REST days?
He also commands us in 1Thessalonians 5:17 to, “Pray without ceasing.” This means all day, every day. In everything we do, we should go to Him in thoughtful prayer, asking for his guidance and wisdom. We should not be adding things to our plate without asking God first whether it is His will or not. In doing this, we are only taking more and more time away from Him.
The enemy loves it when we do that. The less time that we spend consulting God, and in His word, the more likely it will be that we will mistake enemy infiltration for friendly guidance. 2 Timothy 2:15 tells us to, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
When we are in God’s Word every day, studying and committing it to heart, we are better able to recognize and deflect the enemy’s distraction. After all, wouldn’t he just love it if we added one more thing to our plate? That way, INSTEAD OF being where God wanted us to be (so that we could introduce that person He brought across our pat, to Him) we were too overwhelmed and tired to spend time with Him at all? Or to even notice that person. Of course he would!
And what about our families? Don’t they need us? By filling our lives with things that don’t matter, what are we teaching our children? Sure, we might make them read scripture as a part of homeschool curricula or make them attend church/Sunday School. But are we leading by example? Are we demonstrating the way that God asks us to live out our lives? Do we spend God-filled time with them? Or are we teaching them how to live their lives, crossing things off the to-do list?
I know what you’re thinking. If this post struck a chord with you, you’re probably feeling a bit guilty. Perhaps, you’re trying to figure out a way to add God into your already overflowing bucket of life stuff. Maybe you’re even thinking, “I just don’t know how to make more room. My life is already SO FULL. It isn’t that I don’t WANT TO make more time in my life for God, I just don’t think that I can.”
If this sounds like you, you’re right. YOU can’t!! But, as the Don Moen song goes, “God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see, He will make a way for me. He will be my guide. Hold me closer to his side. With love and strength for each new day, He will make a way. He will make a way.”
Only God can order your steps in a way that allows for all that is necessary and that He deeps appropriate. He is the only one who can organize your life and throw away all the nonsense. Will you let Him take control and give you a life overhaul? Can you submit and let God be your strength? Sure you can. “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13.
Father, thank you for your instruction manual. Thank you for giving each and every one of us a one-way ticket out of the rut that we’ve dug for ourselves. Help us to remember that you are that ticket and that, in relying on you to order our steps, we are stripping the enemy of his power over us. Please keep us from falling back into our work, eat, sleep, repeat routines. Allow us to awaken from our monotonous slumbers, refreshed and eager to spend a new day with you by our sides. And thank you that your mercies are new every morning! “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23”. We pray this in Jesus’s precious and holy name. Amen.
Are you running the metaphorical hamster wheel of life? Does it seem like each day blends into the next? Is life stuck in “work, eat, sleep, repeat” mode? Is your life a dull, lackluster shade of gray? God can change it into a beautiful canvas of tranquil, color!!!! All that you have to do is place your trust in Him through a simple, heartfelt prayer of repentance. There is a prayer like that outlined on our Life Preserver page (https://forgiven-n-loved.com/life-preserver/). Please go and check out that page. While you are there, please pray the prayer that is outlined there (or one similar).
Once you have, reach out to me at admin@Forgiven-N-Loved.com. I’d love to be in prayer with — and for — you and to welcome you into the family of God.
Luv ya!
