It's so hard to understand why I can't find time in the day to be alone with God. I manage to make time for homeschooling, cleaning, running errands, doing research, entertainment, reading, and even sometimes I find time to scrapbook a few pages. I know there's lots of days when I feel bored too - so why is it so hard to find time for God? I think, for me at least, it's guilt brought on by the enemy.
When I was little, I wasn't brought up in a nurturing environment. Life was so crazy that everyone around me was probably in "survival mode" and couldn't really function well outside their own crisis. I always felt what I did wasn't good enough. If I got A's, I heard, "Why aren't they A-pluses?!" If I cooked, cleaned, read, babysat, earned Honors at school, made it into different clubs and organizations, whatever it was - it was never good enough.
As a young adult, I worked for a psychotic woman. If I ever dealt with someone who was truly bi-polar, it would've been her. She would lose things, then threaten or blame me for not being able to find them (even if she lost it at her house where I'd never been). No matter what I did, if things didn't go along 100% smoothly, it was my fault for "not taking responsibility." If other employees stole supplies, I was yelled at for not ordering enough the previous week and it was my fault we ran out. If she went to lunch, she'd return and be mad I either did or didn't tell people she was out of the office, depending on her mood.
Then I got married. I tried to be a great wife, doing what (I thought) was expected of me. I tried to be a great Mom and homeschooling teacher to our three kids. My husband provided for us so I could be with them, yet always seemed angry and resentful with me because he worked and I didn't. I ended up with way more than I could handle, doing lots I'd never had any experience doing, being told, "well I work and that's all I can do, I have to focus on that". Again, it was never enough. If I wasn't actively busy 24/7, I was made to feel guilty.
Now I find myself in my 40s still trying to please others. The first year living here, if I didn't stop doing everything that was important and purposed for my life to cut wood, or work in the garden, or spend hours on canning or preserving vegetables, or stacking wood - then it was implied that I didn't work as hard as everyone else.
If I did all that everyone would like to make my problem, who would educate and train up our children? Who would find new ways to bring income into the home? Who would balance the checkbook, schedule necessary errands, spend hours every week trying to save lots of money on groceries with so few resources available out here? pay the bills? do the cleaning? budget out what little we have to make sure there's enough for gas so Tim can get to work? and so many other things? And what about the things that are important to me? Reading for wisdom and skills? Bible Studies to become a better person, wife, and mother? Exercise that clears my mind, not clouds it? Scrapbooking to preserve the memories of our home before the kids are all gone? Planning with the kids for furthering their education and planning their future with them?
So with all that - how do I shut it all out for a little while every day so I can "sharpen the saw" as Dr. Covey calls it in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? How do I get everything done I think I'm supposed to do, then do what's expected of me, then do what I'd like to get done, and still have time to rest in Him - WITHOUT GUILT? If I could learn to let go of all these expectations, and get back to just Him and me - without feeling like I should hurry it up to do something else, how much better would every day be? I would imagine it would be the most rewarding thing I could do. It would be the best foundation to build each day, week, month, year, and a lifetime upon. So how do I get rid of the guilt the enemy keeps bringing to mind when I try to make time for God? I guess it's going to have to be through prayer and persistence in the beginning. Maybe eventually it'll be through prayer and habit. The ultimate goal? For my alone time with God to be THE most important thing I do...period! No concerns about what the world says they need from me, nor what I feel I "should" be doing. I doubt Jesus felt guilty about leaving the sick, poor and others who needed him when it was time for him to get away in private to pray and be alone with his Father. I still have so much to learn from Him.
