Legacy Home Support

What a great weekend!  Temperatures in the 70s, the beauty of fall at its peak, and an extra hour of sleep…what could be better?

If you were in church Saturday night or Sunday morning, you heard Reggie and Pete challenge us to “Manage God’s Time”.  The text was Ephesians 5:15-17 and the overall theme was doing God’s will with the time He has given us.  At Legacy, we call this “Living the Word”.  I like the definition of time they shared with us…”Time is the space He gives us to know Him better and show Him to others”.

Reggie and Pete encouraged us to take three important steps.  First, we need to analyze how we currently use the 168 hours per week God gives us.  For the “average” person we sleep for 56 hours a week, work for 40 hours a week (not including commute time), leaving us 72 hours a week for everything else.  Did you realize most people have ten hours a day in “discretionary” time?  I know it doesn’t seem that way, but for most of us, we have more time than we realize, it’s a matter of how we spend this time that counts.

Second, we were encouraged to focus on what’s really important.  Establishing the right priorities is critical to good time management.  I loved the story about the rocks in the jar.  If you missed the sermon, check it out online.  The story reinforces the importance of investing our time and energy in the right things.  Another way I like to think about priorities is to assess two factors…importance (the “big rocks”) and urgency.  You see, sometimes things only appear important because someone or some thing has made the situation “urgent”.  The best place to operate in life is when you focus on items that are important, but not urgent.  If you wait to address important items when they become urgent, you are just asking for unnecessary stress and frustration for your life.

Reggie and Pete recommended we “know Him” by keeping a daily appointment with God (our quiet time) and respond to God’s appointed schedule of weekly worship with other believers (our corporate worship at Legacy).  They also encouraged us to “show Him” by making our Life Group time a priority and finding a time each month where we can point non-believers to Jesus.

The third step was to utilize our time today.  Don’t live in the past or spend anxious moments worrying about the future…focus on today and the opportunities of the present.  Bottom line…make the most of today.  Use whatever time you have to invest in relationships with your family members and friends.  Stay committed (or re-commit) to growing in your relationship with Jesus.  Do something fun, laugh, read a good book, exercise, go to bed early, turn off the TV, take your spouse on a date, relax.  Say “no” to the unimportant and sell out on the things that really matter.  I heard Dr. James Dobson say at a Promise Keepers event in the mid-90s relative to “priorities”…”All that really matters is who you love, who loves you, and what you do together for the Lord”.  Words worth living.

If you want to dig deeper into the “time stewardship” topic, I will be facilitating a ninety minute discussion on “Making Time Count” Saturday morning, November 8, from 9:00 to 10:30 AM at Legacy’s Overland Park campus.  We will walk through some of the same steps Reggie and Pete shared relative to managing God’s time and add several practical steps/insights to help us make the most of every day.  I believe the statement we affirmed together this weekend at church…”I have enough time to do God’s will”.  Invest the time Saturday morning with others in our church family to learn together how we can “make our time count”.

Awwhh…Exercise?!?…. Do I have to?

We all have our days.  Some are filled to the brim with optimism and inspiration, and some days it is hard to be inspired to get dressed.  Our blackberries and day planners confirm that there is not a spare moment for us to schedule our exercise time, let alone find time to do it as a family.  We must not be discouraged, because passing on the legacy of physical fitness can be done within the family structure.  You just need to plan for it.

Our eldest daughter was only a few weeks old when we took her on our first “family walk”.  I just knew that she would snuggle in her stroller, stare at the puffy blue clouds and enjoy the fresh air.  To my dismay, she started screaming at the top of her lungs less than 1 minute into, what turned out to be a 5 minute brisk walk around the block.  We persevered and eventually she grew accustomed to the outings, and my husband and I cherished the time to talk and get some exercise.  Now with 2 kids, ages 6 and 3, we still love to go in the evenings, after supper, out for a walk, bike ride or scooter ride.  I have learned a few tips along the way.  First, I make sure that we all are dressed accordingly.  Kids have on sneakers and are dressed warm enough.  If we are using scooters, I actually push an empty stroller just in case one of them needs a rest.  I also bring along some water.  I know that every family exercise time will not go perfectly, but having at least 30 minutes of time to be outside, as a family has been great for our family, good for our health and instrumental in passing down the family value of exercise.

Now it’s your turn.  Grab your sneakers.  Tell your kids how much fun this is going to be, and enjoy some time together outside.  You’ll be glad that you did… (well… most of the time)