Living a Balanced Life.

In this talk Dave Smith of Kingsgate Community Church explores the subjects of time, work and rest in the context of Genesis 2v1-3, and Exodus 28v8-11.

Below are the notes from this session.

Hear the message

Work Life Balance (download) (Dr Adrian Miles)

Honouring God with my time

Time is the one resource that everyone has in exactly the same measure. No matter how rich, poor, educated, uneducated we have 86,000 seconds each every day. The challenge is to use this moments wisely.

If work and rest were a balanced see-saw do you think society is tipped more on one than the other? What about you as an individual?
Life was created with a purposeful rhythm (Genesis 1:14) of days, nights, seasons and years. In what ways could we better honour God with how we use our days, nights, months and years?

Thanking God for my work

Genesis 2:15 shows that meaningful work is part of God’s plan for humanity. In that context we each must thank God for the work we have.

What can you be thankful to work for about your work? Does this seem a difficult thing for you to do? How could we support those who find this difficult?
If we were all thankful for the work we have how would that change our Monday mornings?

Imitating God in my rest

The third and greater focus is how we view and use rest, encouraging us to imitate God in our rest times. Rest has three dimensions (if you’ve got a three legged stool – or a tripod available use it to illustrate this, otherwise just use the picture).
Rest has three dimensions and should leave us feeling.

Physically Refreshed - Emotionally Recharged – Spiritually Revived

Often our plans for rest (if we have any at all) focus on one of the three to the detriment of the others but just as a milking stool needs 3 legs to be balanced so our rest must have this three dimensional quality.

In which of these three areas (physical, emotional, spiritual) do you find yourself least restful, recharged, refreshed or revived?

In response to each of these three areas Dave suggested a Psalm:

Physical = Psalm 127v2
Emotional= Psalm 23v2-3
Spiritual = Psalm 85v6

Take a moment to read the Psalm that relates to your “area” – what does this say to you?

Dave quoted a Doctor who said “periods of rest I prescribe for people are often Sabbaths in arrears”. What is the cost of ignoring the Sabbath rhythm? Personally? Societally? How can we protect this rhythm?

Finally

Either take some time to pray for each other over the issues that were raised and/or ask your group to take a quick rest check (see below) leading to prayer and ministry together.

Quick Rest Check

Ideas coming from Dave’s message:

I view work as a gift from God
I view my work as part of God’s purpose for me
I have ordered my life so that I am neither underworked or overworked
I have a rhythm of work and rest in my life that reflects God’s pattern of 6+1
I honour the creational principle of work and rest (Exodus 20v8-11)
I live out the Sabbath commandment but avoid legalism and unhelpful rules
On my rest day I do things that build me up and restore me.
I prioritise Sunday worship as a biblically important principle
If I have to work on a Sunday I have a different 24 hours of rest time
I am “working from a place of rest” rather than “resting from work”
I have periods of quiet and meditation in my life
The pattern of my life shows that I am positioning myself to receive the provision of God over and in my life
Where I am responsible for the work life of other people I encourage Godly principles towards them too

Dave Smith, 22/11/2010