Passionate Homemaking

Wel­come back for the con­tin­u­a­tion on our series dis­cussing the impor­tance and how-to’s of sim­pli­fy­ing your lives in order to be better fit for the Lord’s use. So far we have talked about the reason for it all, living simply in order to give gen­er­ously of our time and resources, sim­pli­fy­ing by com­muning, & plan­ning. Now let’s dis­cuss the impor­tant truth of just slow­ing down.

“Make it your ambi­tion to lead a quiet life and attend to your own busi­ness and work with your hands, just as we com­manded you…” (1 Thess. 4:11)

Why does it seem that life is just a mad rush from one event to another? From soccer prac­tice to music lessons, from school to church. You ask “how’s it going?” and the con­tin­ual reply is: “I am so busy! I don’t have any extra time.” Does that sound familiar?

But we keep choos­ing busy! We choose it because in this West­ern world busy­ness equals suc­cess. The more in our day­plan­ner the greater our impor­tance. Busy­ness not only wears us down, weaken our rela­tion­ships, and vapor­izes our time; it verges on idol wor­ship. Who is the idol? ME! Do we real­ize that the root of this busy­ness might just be an obses­sion with “me”! Do I think that my efforts and actions will sus­tain my family and the world around me? Do I imag­ine it will all fail if I don’t com­plete this or that?

Are the pri­or­i­ties in the right place? The ques­tion begs to be asked, are we miss­ing out on something?

Slow­ing down takes work, but it is pos­si­ble and very worth it!

The goal in sim­pli­fy­ing your life is to give you more time for the qual­ity activ­i­ties, for the invest­ment in family and in min­istry together towards others! If we aren’t seeing or talk­ing to each other as a family, some­thing must go. If we don’t have time to serve a friend with a meal because we are run­ning around find­ing all the good sales, maybe we should re-​evaluate what truly are our priorities?

This is the boat I was in and must con­tin­u­ally be on the alert for those signs of the “busyness idol” creep­ing in (stressed, over­whelmed, rela­tion­ships suf­fer­ing, etc)…this is my weak­ness, and I have fallen into the trap many times. Here are a few lessons we have learned in the process of learn­ing how to slow down…We are far from per­fect, but God’s grace is guid­ing us as we seek to follow in His purposes.

1. Limit outside activities or commitments

We try to be pur­pose­ful in sched­ul­ing only 1-2 evenings a week for out­side activ­i­ties (hos­pi­tal­ity, invi­ta­tions, ser­vice projects, etc), oth­er­wise the plate is too full and we can’t effi­ciently serve our family and friends with focus, peace and rest. We have learned this the hard way.

When it comes to out­side activ­i­ties for chil­dren, eval­u­ate which is most impor­tant, what will have the best long term impact, and be qual­ity activ­i­ties at the same time. Pick one thing and let every­one do it! For our family grow­ing up it was always music. We all played instru­ments! We felt this was a pri­or­ity because we knew we could use these gifts for the Lord’s ser­vice in wor­ship and to bless others, so one day a week we would all go to piano lessons.

2. Family Nights

You need the time to invest in one another, so having a family night is impor­tant, as well as other nights through­out the week to relax, read together, etc. I love having a focused read­ing night on Tues­days, where we just cuddle up and read to our hearts con­tent! Part of the free­dom here lies in the fact that we don’t own a tele­vi­sion, so we have much fewer dis­trac­tions.

3. Family Ministry

Choice a family min­istry that you could invest in during these out­side activ­ity times and not only will you build family rela­tion­ships but also be extend­ing the King­dom at the same time. Aaron & I are serv­ing to mobi­lize in the area of mis­sions in our church so we gather together with fellow enthu­si­asts twice a month, and that is our activ­ity for the week as we are serv­ing together in it. This could also just be choos­ing ways to serve together as a family in the church (on the wor­ship team, fold­ing bul­letins, set­ting up in some way). Do things together!

Remember…bathe every­thing in prayer! Is this some­thing God would desire for us to par­tic­i­pate in? I have learned again and again, that if I stretch myself too thin, I can no longer excel in any­thing! All things get done in a hap­haz­ard way when there is too many on the plate. With a hus­band who is a ser­vant and is fre­quently asked to serve in dif­fer­ent ways, we have to eval­u­ate every­thing very care­fully. How will this affect the family?

4. Take time for rest!

Take a sab­bath rest for the good of your family. Whether it be Sat­ur­day or Sunday or any other day of the week, remem­ber God has com­manded us to rest. Sched­ule it in! Use this time to refresh your soul in the word and plan for the upcom­ing week. Taking time to rest reminds us anew of our utter depen­dence upon the Lord. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor will labor in vain! Unless the Lord watches over the city, those who watch will watch in vain (Psalm 127). Acknowl­edg­ing our need for rest will glo­rify our Savior as we rest in Him! Remem­ber, the grass will still grow, the sun will still shine, and the rain will still fall. He is in con­trol and not I! He is watch­ing over my household!

5. Continually re-evaluate your priorities

Is house­clean­ing get­ting too much atten­tion on my sched­ule, whereas my hus­band is get­ting neglected? Or are too many out­side activ­i­ties going on that my house­hold is in dis­ar­ray? Am I spend­ing time enjoy­ing my hus­band and chil­dren or just con­stantly con­sumed with serv­ing them? My pri­or­i­ties are: God, hus­band, child, house­hold, others.

“But I am afraid that, as the ser­pent deceived Eve by his crafti­ness, your minds will be led astray from the sim­plic­ity and purity of devo­tion to Christ.” (2 Cor. 11:3)

Let’s return together to the sim­plic­ity of devo­tion to Christ! Christ is the focus…He is the reason for our exis­tence. Above all, do all that you do for the Lord! Let’s make every step purposeful!

These are the first steps towards sim­pli­fy­ing that work for us!

More to come next week…

Do you have any sim­pli­fy­ing tips to share? How do you seek to limit out­side activities?