"Yield" and Be Frugal

Typically, when we hear the word frugal, we think of money, but to tell you the truth, I find it can be just as hard to be frugal when it comes to "time" as it is with money. Frankly, I find it really easy to get swallowed up by busyness. Yes, I’ve had the “super-mom” complex. I was the ultimate team-managing travel soccer mom at one point. I was the fundraising, competitive dance team mom and the jersey washing Varsity Football mom. For a few years these happened simultaneously! Ugh!!! Now I wonder how my kids can be gone off to college and I’m still so busy! Here’s the thing that God has recently shown me.

Why am I doing the things that I’m doing? Is God at the center of my choices?

Colossians 1:9-10

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God."

In my prayer time the other day, I was praying for God to give some direction in my life on some matters and what I heard him saying to me was “We need more time together. I want you to do less and listen to me more. Then we will accomplish more." What he was saying was “Stop trying to do things, even things for me in your own power. Sit with me. Listen for my voice. I will lead you I will multiply your efforts because you will be doing what pleases me. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Pleasing God?

Matthew 6:33

"Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you."

When we run here and there being busy. Are we doing it because God asked us to or because we trying to meet our need for self worth by accomplishing more or trying to gain the approval of others?

When we seek God and ask him to show us what he wants us to do, when we seek to please HIM, we allow him to become involved in every aspect of our lives. Our lives become fruitful because he can anoint what we’re doing when it is in line with His will for our lives. All of that other busyness, if done outside of his will, is done in our own power. If God has called us to do something, we just need to be obedient and do it. If I really think about it, I have always had enough time to get done the things God truly called me to do.

Breaking the “busyness” habit was really tough, mainly, because as I said before, I am a “do-er” by nature. It made me feel more in control of things if I felt like I was acting upon them in some way. But that is just the problem. I was doing that out of a need to be in control. But 1 Chronicles 29 tells us God is in control of all things. So think about it, if I have a heart to use my time the way God wants me to use it, wouldn’t it make sense to first of all “ask him what he wants me to do?” and then rather than run around doing things I think make sense, and finding out later were totally fruitless endeavors—wait until he tells me what to do and then just do that and have he results be awesome. Hmmm. That means I would probably spend less time doing and more time accomplishing God’s will for more life. I think this is what Jesus had in mind in Matthew 11:28-30, when he says:

Matthew 11:28

“Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take MY yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If I know what I am doing is pleasing to the Lord that definitely gives me much more peace than running around like crazy and worrying about whether anything I did really mattered. Remember what the bible says in 1 Samuel.15? “To obey is better than sacrifice.” When we stand at the judgment seat of Christ, will we be like Saul? “Look at what great things I did for you, Lord. Look at what I sacrificed to do all these noble and charitable things.” How many of us will have sacrificed our families for our jobs or even our congregations, but never really considered what God really WANTED us to do. We can be really busy doing good things, but they aren’t necessarily God things.

What God really wants from his people is for them to be yielded to Him. Remember, God doesn’t need to use us in his work, He chooses to use us if we will submit to His will. He’s in charge of the results. He just wants us to execute his plan. Even Christ himself was submitted to the will of the Father. What really matters in life is living out the will of God in our lives. Being a good steward of time is making God such a huge priority in our lives that everything we do is in obedience to what He asks us to do. That’s what we refer to as “loving God, with all our heart, our souls, our mind and our strength.” Is it easy? No! Is it a process? Yes! One that the Lord is only too pleased to guide us through, if we just take the time to ask him to come in and take over. Kind of like moving over in the front seat and letting him take the wheel.

The world says it’s all about you… how much you can get, how much you can do. But God says it’s all about relationship, first and foremost with Him. From that place alone, can He use us to truly change the world.