This Sunday, I'm giving a lesson on why work is an important gospel principle. Coincidentally (or not. God plans things, even when I don't), a related topic has been on my mind for the past few days: How busy does God want us to be? How much time does He want us to spend on the things that matter to Him, and how much time (if any) is left over after that? I'm sure God doesn't want us to spend all our waking hours working. I'd be very surprised if God didn't set aside at least a little bit of time for recreation. But what is the recommended balance between work, rest, and play, and how can we find that balance?
This question is especially important to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for two reasons. The first is that, in this church, we are given a good deal to do. We're given numerous callings and assignments to fulfil, countless meetings to attend, and plenty of service opportunities, just in case we weren't already busy enough. The second reason balance between work, rest, and recreation in important to Mormons is that we believe in eternal progression. When a person dies, they don't become stagnant and "Rest in Peace," as the saying goes. Instead, deceased persons are expected to continue to work on their eternal progress and to help others do the same. Our work does not end when we die, which is why it's important that we eventually find a balance that we could literally maintain forever.
Finding this balance may be a process for a lifetime, but thankfully, the steps you have to take to find that balance are simple and easy to follow. First, you observe your behavior and determine whether you're pending too much or too little time and effort in any one area. Then, when you've identified the aspect of your life that's most out-of-balance, you can take steps to bring it into balance. Once you've gotten that aspect of your life back into the balance, you should try to find another aspect of your life that's out-of-balance and fix it, too.
At this stage of my life, and particularly at this moment, I think that my life is out of balance in that I spend many of my nights staying up late, working when I really should be resting. I'm sure God doesn't want me to do that. Work is important, but rest is important, too, and I haven't been getting enough of it. That's something I should really work on: trying to manage my waking hours well enough that I can get my work done in time to get a decent amount of rest. I don't think that happened today. That hasn't been happening most nights lately. But now that I've identified the problem, I can take steps to fix it. I won't be able to fix my imbalance overnight, but I'm sure that if I continue to work on it, I can get my work-rest-recreation balance into a stable position.
1 comment:
I am not clear on God and recreation, although when you really love your work, it is a sort of recreation. Recreation = re create. Creating is something God is very good at. When God created our world, He rested on the 7th day.
When we consistently find ourselves staying up late working or feeling like we need to work on the Sabbath day, we also need to ask ourselves are we taking on too much or what are we doing that keeps us from completing our tasks during the appropriate work time? Can we simplify our lives? (easier said than done!) Can we use our time more effectively? Sadly, the more we give up rest to work, often the less efficiently we are able to work.
We need to also learn to give proper value to quality time with the people in our lives.
This time management thing is hard. You are right, it is probably a process for a lifetime.
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