If You Want to Transform Your Week, Look for the Presence of These Items

As you think about your weekly schedule, imagine carrying the bag of your choice.

You don’t just go through your schedule - you carry stuff along the way, much like going to school. We all had a class schedule, but we carried various items: books, tools, food, love notes (well I didn’t…but that’s another message for another time), and a host of other things.

The school days may be over, but we’d be wise to consider the things we carry through the week. Here’s a handful of items you may be carrying without realizing it:

Unnecessary additions

Paul reminded the Thessalonians to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life…”

Too often we make our lives louder than necessary by adding items that aren’t ours to carry:

• Tasks - It’s very easy to make our lives much noisier with tasks that aren’t ours to carry out. Are they important? Yes, and they might be better carried out by other hands.

• Improvements - Perfectionism is a problem. I’m reminded of just how many times in my own life I’ve gone beyond preparation into perfectionism, to the detriment of the rest my soul desperately needed.

• Demands - Make a list of the demands you’re dealing with. Now ask: who’s making these demands? Often times, the answer isn’t out the window. It’s in the mirror.

Avoidable intrusions

Remember King Hezekiah?

When you consider the various kings and rulers across Scripture, he fared well. But one decision would be costly. Visited by envoys from the Babylonians, Hezekiah let them in too far in 2 Kings 20:13:

Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine olive oil—his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

Have you prayerfully sorted out what saying “no” sounds like?

If you haven’t, you’ll say yes to the seemingly good things, and overlook the God things.

Overlooked opportunities

Among the many expressions of God’s love for us is one of guidance - by whatever means necessary.

In Acts 16:6-7, we find Paul being redirected by God more than once. Think about that. Even Paul with all his plans is regularly being guided by God. It began with his conversion, and continued throughout his ministry and lifetime.

We all have unscheduled appointments on the calendar, if we’ll yield to the One who knows best.

A helpful prayer to pray: “Lord open my eyes, and soften my heart.”

Unintended consequences

One of the well-known accounts in Scripture is that of the prophet Elijah and his victory over the pagan prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.

Then in 1 Kings 19, we find Elijah on the run, exhausted, and wanting to die.

No doubt Jezebel’s threats struck fear in Elijah. But I find in this victory of God a thundering coming from Elijah that I’m curious about. There’s not just the what of God’s purposes being carried out, but also the how of Elijah’s posture as he goes about it.

I’m reminded that keeping Christlike character in carrying out what God has set before us correlates to the continued strength to carry it out.

When I take all these together, perhaps I should’ve begun with this last element. After all, we can’t see the aforementioned items without it.

Unhurried time with God

You cannot schedule the items mentioned above, which means you must schedule this one.

Without unhurried time with God, we can’t see what we’re carrying with us as we go about the week before us. I’m convinced it’s why we find Jesus in prayer outside the regular waking hours of the people he encountered. There in the continued fellowship with our Heavenly Father, he was strengthened for continued relationship with all the human faces he’d interact with.

It’s this we’re invited to.

Schedule it, and discover it makes all the difference between carrying the heaviest of loads through the easiest of weeks, and the lightest of loads through the longest of weeks - and all the variations in between.

Nathan