Once I played hooky from one of our weekly outreach functions, the neighborhood pizza and a movie night.  And I did a really rare thing -- I cooked dinner for a friend.

I have struggled for a long time with how we use the gift of time.  Some people who are always busy seem to be the ones you can count on to do even more.  Yet I often hesitate to ask those people to do more in the church because I know they are already overextended. 

It is not necessarily that I think they are going to overextend themselves so much that they won't be there for whatever I ask them to do, it is more that I worry about what else they are not going to be doing.

For all of our talk about being justified by grace, sometimes we Lutherans function as if we think we are going to work ourselves into the kingdom.  If I just take on one more project or help one more person, then it will be enough. 

In a sense we are like some people about money.  There is never enough.  When have we collected enough projects or organizations to chair?

What may suffer is our prayer life.  What may suffer is our family.  What may suffer is our relationship to others.

If the only time you see your friends is in a committee meeting, then you are doing too much.

We work on all these committees and do all these good works to make life better and fuller and more grace filled for everyone.  But if we have no life and no connection to God or to the others around us then we lose tough with the point of it all.

We need constantly to reevaluate how we are spending our time.  If there is a new project you really feel called to, maybe you need to look at the rest of your life and see where you are spending your time and what has become a less valuable use of your time and talents.

Did that organization grow enough that they don't need you to do as many jobs anymore?  Has the nature of that other committee outlived its usefulness?  Now there is a bold idea.  Don't just resign.  Suggest it be disbanded.  Stop doing for the sake of doing.

Pray about it.  Since we should all be spending more time in prayer, that's a good way to begin.

I am sitting listening to the song, "Simple Gifts."  with all this new free time, give a gift of time to your family.

I am not suggesting that what we are all doing isn't important.  it just needs rethinking all the time.  We actually get more done when we remember why we are doing things and make our function meet our purpose.

There is no better way to remember why we do what we do than to pray.  I often begin the liturgy, "We begin in the name in which we do everything:  'In the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.'"

Lord,
Do not let what you have called me to do draw me away from you or away from those whom you have given me to love.  Draw me back again and refresh me and remind me that what I need to do is to share your love.
Amen