Do you feel buried?

There are times in life when our schedule overwhelms our goals.

I’m not talking about those times we make priority choices and sort of lose our way. I’m talking about when you wife (or husband) is in the hospital, or your kids are struggling and need your undivided attention. Many of us face those long years when our parents need constant help but aren’t yet at the place of accessing outside care.

During these times, our “projects” or life objectives get buried in the avalanche of the urgent.

Here are some tips on survival:

1. Take care of yourself. Seriously – walk, eat right, make your relationship with God a priority. How have you connected with God in the past? Think about The 5 Love Languages. What is your love language with God? How do you show Him love, and how do you feel His love? Instead of trying to do everything you’ve always done for God, focus on the relationship.

2. Consider the seed. What part of you do you feel is being buried? Perhaps God is ordering your time and energy and letting this thing be buried. When a seed is buried, it becomes nourished by all the dirt and … fertilizer that life gives us. However, eventually when a seed dies, something new, and lovely will spring from it. God will use the difficulties of your today to create the vitality and impact of your tomorrows. 

3. Get prayer support. One of the best things we ever did was to recruit a prayer team to walk with us for nine months. We felt called to ask 20 people to pray with us through a transition. We thought we were transitioning back into ministry, but instead during those nine months, we had two parents in the hospital and recovery at the same time, one passed away, the other went to an adult family home, my husband started a new job, and we moved. We managed the transition primarily because God heard the prayers of our prayer team.

Life is hard sometimes, and we all get buried. If you are buried by schedule or ‘must do’s’, make sure that your time and energy is ordered by God. He is walking with you, and when He orders your time, you will always have the time, energy and resources that you need for today.