I’ve been thinking through my priorities. I took pen to paper and made a list. Suddenly, I had an epiphany. I was struggling to feel like I was getting things done because the top priorities on my list required invisible work. This meant that if I spent the majority of my time doing the things that were most important to me, I would not see immediate results. I was beginning to see my need to embrace delayed gratification.
Visible Work
There is something so satisfying about organizing my home, gardening, cutting my son’s hair, painting the bathroom and making a beautiful meal. This kind of work is visible. At the end of the day, there are results that are pleasing to me and to others. This is good work. Satisfying work.
But there is another kind of work that is sometimes not as immediately satisfying. This work does not always give immediate results. It requires me to be intentional and self-disciplined. The work I am speaking of is the work of relationships.
It seems like most women I know, myself included, choose to prioritize the visual kind of work. It is important for us to know that our life is a well-ordered smooth-sailing ship. Being well-organized and hard-working are good things. But here is the crunch: if our life is jam-packed full of visibly good work, what has happened to our relational work? Most likely it has been neglected.
Invisible Work
The fact is that good, healthy relationships require time, energy and effort and our visible work may have to take a backseat to it at times.
There is wisdom to leaving those crunchy Cheerios on the floor and instead spending 20 minutes of quiet, unhurried communion with my God.
There is wisdom in an afternoon spent playing, talking and hanging out with my boys instead of cleaning the storage room.
There is wisdom in dropping a project for long enough to really see my husband, to hear what he is saying and to engage him with warmth and affection.
When I lay my head down on my pillow tonight I may have a crunchy floor, a disorganized storage room and some half-finished projects, but maybe I’ve done something of worth. Maybe I can close my eyes and thank God that I’ve had an invisibly productive day.
It’s back to school for many households. For some families, it was hard to convince their kids to return to schoolwork (at a school or at home). For others, they’re starting university or for teachers, they return to their classes. Everybody is getting back on schedule whether they like it or not.
In our home, getting back on schedule meant laying out a big white calendar on the table and Christel writing in dates and events in thick red ink. Yes, a big white calendar is pretty analog. But it’s a better start for us when we can’t get all of our calendars to sync across accounts and devices!
There is wisdom in planning. It’s been said that if you don’t make the plan someone will make it for you. Since God created the world in seven days (Gen 1:1-2:3), the day and night 24 cycle has remained with us. So the order of God’s creation encourages us to make plans in keeping with that orderly pattern of time. But the fall of Adam ensures that we will always be fighting the clock, even fighting against the day of our sure death (Gen 3:17-19). As Isaac Watts wrote in his famous hymn, Our God, Our Help in Ages Past:
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.
Planning your schedule is wise. And the bible’s wisdom literature has some help for us in our planning. Here are three ways to commit yourself to the Lord in your planning.
Commit your schedule to God, Don’t Ignore Him.
It can be easy to let other priorities crowd out biblical ones. When it comes to child-raising it can be your good intentions that are the greatest barrier to committing your work to the Lord (Proverbs 16:3). It is good to have goals for kids, but they can become demands that crowd out everything else.
Ask yourself whether the activities your child has will take them away from attending church. Will you ever have a sit-down family meal? Can you preserve the priority of family worship and corporate worship with the schedule you are making? In your planning, commit your work to God, and “your plans will be established”(16:3). Like all proverbs, it is not a clear promise but it is wise. When God and his worship are set as non-negotiables, then that priority will make some of your decisions for you.
Guard Against People-Pleasing As You Plan
I’ve heard a few preachers make the comment that Christians in the West today will give the church their money, but not their calendar. In other words, they will not submit their calendars to the priorities of their local church. Often people de-prioritize the church because they want to please people. People-pleasing is a subtle temptation when we fill our calendars. But we need to guard against it. As the Proverb says, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit” (Prov 16:2).
It happens quickly. The coach, teacher, or after-school group asks for more commitment from students and parents as if there were no other commitments in the world. The challenge in these situations is to have the courage to say no. That means that some people will not be happy with your choice. It may also mean that you count the cost before committing and you don’t sign up. Fear of your child missing out is the biggest motivator for family schedules. But that kind of default people-pleasing will lead to burned-out kids and distorted perspectives.
Make Hard Decisions in Favour of Family Harmony
In our family, we had to make a hard decision about the schedule for one of our sons. We had to decide to drop one sport and begin another. As we aimed to commit our schedule to the LORD, we realized that there was no way to preserve peace in our home if we attempted the odometer-bloating, soul-crushing schedule which our new plans would have demanded. We had to make a tough decision and drop something.
By culling some of our activities, we knew that our son would “miss out”. But instead of fearing that, we were thankful to God for the opportunities he did have and trusted God for future opportunities to come.
When you drop one of your family’s commitments, it can limit the spectre of sibling rivalry. If one child gets to do everything and another child gets the scraps in the schedule, then resentment may grow over time. But as Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Maybe your child might not be the next Wayne Gretzky or Serena Williams, but your family will be saner with siblings living at peace.
As you plan, walk with humility. Don’t be afraid to quit things if it’s the right thing to do. Keep the priorities of church participation (Hebrews 10:24-25) and family worship (Deut 6:7) and trust the Lord for your children’s future.
You can be confident that God’s schedule will always be right.
