There Is Enough Time

by Rev. Mark E. Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader

….to do what God calls us to do.

How much do we believe that?

Perhaps you are like me coming into this new year… rested more than usual, full of visions and dreams for yourself and your ministry. I’m no longer surprised when I emerge from the holidays with a list of new initiatives I believe Pinnacle must pursue right away in this new year. This has happened so many times that I’ve come to recognize the pattern. On the one hand, this is how I know I’m rested (grateful). On the other, productive urgency can quickly turn into frantic activity accompanied by the ongoing stress burn of too much to do.

So this drives me back to a familiar mantra. If you’ve been part of my presentations or coaching groups it’s not new for you.

There is enough time to do what God calls us to do.

Theology Check – “Heavenly Parent,” is one of the images of God we find in scripture, a helpful analogy for understanding how we relate with God and vice versa. For those of us who are parents, we love our children (of course), with no desire to make their lives miserable or frantic, burdening them with way too much to do. We may challenge them, we may call them to get up off the couch and make something of themselves, but we don’t intentionally try to break them down through excessive expectations. We love them too much for that. Would God, who loves better than we do, not care in similar ways? Would God ask us to do so much that we break down, burn out, lose our personal relationships, vocationally crash, or otherwise fall apart? Well, I’ve experienced several of these difficulties, but I believe they were of my own making rather than God’s.

There is enough time to do what God calls us to do.

What this faith statement means for us then is that our work is to align our lives with the reality of our faith. When I’m not living in alignment with this belief, typically I’m out of alignment with God’s calling in one of two ways (or both), each having to do with expectations

There is NOT enough time to do what God calls us to do when I expect more from myself than what God is asking. Perhaps I’m not alone (knowing many of you), in adding far more to my To Do List than can be accomplished. When I grow frantic with pressure to unreasonably accomplish, then often my To Do List does not reflect God’s calling. Many great possibilities are listed there, but many of them are more my dreams for myself or our organization than God’s dreams. When there, it’s time for a spiritual inventory, discerning what needs to remain.

There is NOT enough time do what God calls us to do when others expect more from us than what we can deliver (and keep our sanity). Most of us don’t serve in a vacuum. People expect us to accomplish and perform. Our churches, organizations, and employers rightly expect us to perform certain duties. This is the world of work in which we live. Even so, we can get to the place where these expectations are unreasonable. When there, another kind of inventory is required. Have we accumulated too many responsibilities in our roles? Have we said yes too often? Are the job responsibilities unreasonable? What kind of changes would resolve these issues? If no changes are possible, is this how we want to live? It’s funny how an apparently simple faith statement can elicit significant issues when we try aligning our lives with our faith.

With some reflection and engagement, we realize there is enough time to do what God calls us to do, while there may not be enough time to do what we ourselves and others expect us to do. Just like our vehicles, sometimes we need a realignment to keep us on course without getting the shimmies or wobbles or breaking down.

There is enough time to do what God calls us to do.

May we live in alignment with this faith statement in 2024, making our best contributions to God’s movement in this world, while living and working with faithful sustainability.