Redeeming the Time
Hello again! This week is flying by! We were talking with our Bible study folks tonight about time, and we all agree that it is going by so fast that it's hard to believe it's almost Easter. And Easter is even later this year than it normally is!
A quick prayer request before I get to the main point of this post. Our car is in the shop . . . again! Wes was out in traffic yesterday and noticed something wrong. He called the repair shop that has handled all our other car troubles, and they sent a tow truck right away. He was afraid it was the engine (that we had put in less than a year ago), but the mechanic called today and said it's the radiator. There's a crack in the lines somewhere, and that's what caused the problems. The bad news is that it's not covered by the warranty on the motor; the good news is that it's not as bad or expensive a repair as the motor. So we sit, once again, without our 2000 Olds van. Andrew's 1995 Ford Escort runs like a charm, though! :)
This post will contain my preliminary thoughts on what the Lord has been doing in my heart lately. I could probably write pages and pages on it, once I got started, so I will try to keep this short tonight. God has been convicting me lately about how much time I spend online. That happens to all of us who love to write and read blogs, doesn't it? It seems to be a common theme. So I've been taking steps to reduce my online time, and I've been praying to know God's heart about how I spend this time.
I read this post on A Soft Place to Land (a new blog to me) a couple of weeks ago, and it just resonated in my heart. One of the commenters there mentioned that her church leaders had done a teaching session on addictions. Men were most commonly addicted to immorality; women were addicted to social networking, spending 4-6+ hours a day online on blogs and social sites like Facebook. I cringed when I read that. There have been far too many days that I've spent hours on end on my computer. My best friend once told me that she won't let herself read blogs because she knows she'll become addicted to them and spend too much time online. She is wise.
My devotions have seemed to point out that I'm spending too much time focused on things online. And Mrs. Martens mentioned last weekend that we women don't seem to have that spiritual depth in us in these days, and I realized it's because our attention is too scattered. We're not focused on the Lord, so of course we don't have any spiritual depth. All of these things have been on my heart in just the past couple of weeks.
I'll tell you my biggest problem with reading blogs, which is my hardest online activity to control. It's all the information. I love to read about homemaking, decorating, crafts, Christian womanhood, organizing . . . there is so much out there that is good and worthy of reading! But that's the problem - there IS so much. Many times my mind is muddled with it all and I become discontent and anxious. There's a reason, ladies, why God tells us not to wander idly from house to house (I Timothy 5:13) - which is what we're doing online, if we're not careful of our time. We women are emotional people; we think all the time, and when we have all this different input, even though it's good, it gets us (or at least me) in an uproar.
So I have come to one conclusion. I'm going to take several breaks a year from reading blogs and from writing on my own. They won't be long or permanent, but they will happen. And the first one will happen next week. It's the week before Easter, a good time to pull away from all the extra information and busyness and focus my heart on my Savior. A good time to redeem the time I normally spend online. Before I start that time, I hope to share a few more thoughts on this subject. Hopefully. It's taken me all week to get to this post! LOL
A quick prayer request before I get to the main point of this post. Our car is in the shop . . . again! Wes was out in traffic yesterday and noticed something wrong. He called the repair shop that has handled all our other car troubles, and they sent a tow truck right away. He was afraid it was the engine (that we had put in less than a year ago), but the mechanic called today and said it's the radiator. There's a crack in the lines somewhere, and that's what caused the problems. The bad news is that it's not covered by the warranty on the motor; the good news is that it's not as bad or expensive a repair as the motor. So we sit, once again, without our 2000 Olds van. Andrew's 1995 Ford Escort runs like a charm, though! :)
This post will contain my preliminary thoughts on what the Lord has been doing in my heart lately. I could probably write pages and pages on it, once I got started, so I will try to keep this short tonight. God has been convicting me lately about how much time I spend online. That happens to all of us who love to write and read blogs, doesn't it? It seems to be a common theme. So I've been taking steps to reduce my online time, and I've been praying to know God's heart about how I spend this time.
I read this post on A Soft Place to Land (a new blog to me) a couple of weeks ago, and it just resonated in my heart. One of the commenters there mentioned that her church leaders had done a teaching session on addictions. Men were most commonly addicted to immorality; women were addicted to social networking, spending 4-6+ hours a day online on blogs and social sites like Facebook. I cringed when I read that. There have been far too many days that I've spent hours on end on my computer. My best friend once told me that she won't let herself read blogs because she knows she'll become addicted to them and spend too much time online. She is wise.
My devotions have seemed to point out that I'm spending too much time focused on things online. And Mrs. Martens mentioned last weekend that we women don't seem to have that spiritual depth in us in these days, and I realized it's because our attention is too scattered. We're not focused on the Lord, so of course we don't have any spiritual depth. All of these things have been on my heart in just the past couple of weeks.
I'll tell you my biggest problem with reading blogs, which is my hardest online activity to control. It's all the information. I love to read about homemaking, decorating, crafts, Christian womanhood, organizing . . . there is so much out there that is good and worthy of reading! But that's the problem - there IS so much. Many times my mind is muddled with it all and I become discontent and anxious. There's a reason, ladies, why God tells us not to wander idly from house to house (I Timothy 5:13) - which is what we're doing online, if we're not careful of our time. We women are emotional people; we think all the time, and when we have all this different input, even though it's good, it gets us (or at least me) in an uproar.
So I have come to one conclusion. I'm going to take several breaks a year from reading blogs and from writing on my own. They won't be long or permanent, but they will happen. And the first one will happen next week. It's the week before Easter, a good time to pull away from all the extra information and busyness and focus my heart on my Savior. A good time to redeem the time I normally spend online. Before I start that time, I hope to share a few more thoughts on this subject. Hopefully. It's taken me all week to get to this post! LOL
The week before Easter is the best time I know of to do this Susan. I feel the same as you do about blogs. We all need to be careful not to put things on line before our Lord, family, and other responsibilities.
ReplyDeleteI hope your break leaves you refreshed and encouraged! I'm praying that your car repairs won't break the bank. ;)
ReplyDelete