Simplifying The Chaos to Better Hear from God
Faith@Work is a Navigators sponsored monthly luncheon for business women in Albuquerque, NM. Its mission is helping business and professional women live out their faith more intentionally in their workplaces. We do this through several different means:
• Presenting challenging messages each month from local practitioners who are learning how to live on purpose for God.
• Promoting, developing and implementing Bible Studies in the workplace for women across the city.
• Recruiting, training and utilizing volunteers in a variety of ways to reach out and connect with other business women each month at the luncheons.
Faith@Work Message, October 17, 2011; "Simplifying The Chaos to Better Hear from God" Albuquerque, NM
Speaker: Karen Warin, Director, Faith@Work; The Navigators B&P Women's Ministry
• Presenting challenging messages each month from local practitioners who are learning how to live on purpose for God.
• Promoting, developing and implementing Bible Studies in the workplace for women across the city.
• Recruiting, training and utilizing volunteers in a variety of ways to reach out and connect with other business women each month at the luncheons.
Faith@Work Message, October 17, 2011; "Simplifying The Chaos to Better Hear from God" Albuquerque, NM
Speaker: Karen Warin, Director, Faith@Work; The Navigators B&P Women's Ministry
For someone who desperately needs to simplify her life, this message was a timely one for me to hear from God and prepare as a message for Faith@Work last month. I had just come through a trying week of extra demands on my time and energy. From broken appliances to internet problems to a surprise visit from my son in college, I was faced with constant interruptions to my carefully planned schedule. While they were not typical distractions, they were certainly part of a pattern of busyness in my life. This pattern means that finding time to hear from God on a daily basis is challenged at every turn.
I’m learning that interruptions are part of the normal ebb and flow of life. They are the things that prompt me often to say, “If I can just get through this next week, my life will return to normal”. But life never returns to “normal”. There are always unexpected things! So how do I simplify my life in order to be prepared for the interruptions and stay close to God?
The key is making room in the erratic, never-normal, daily chaos of my life for God. It means doing some maintenance work on the priorities, preoccupations, perfectionism, and power source in my life. Here are some tips I’ve learned for doing this:
1. Recommit to making God your FIRST priority. Matthew 6:33
2. Identify the preoccupations in your life that can get out of control: busyness, worry, emotional baggage, temptations, idols, technology. Choose to eliminate things that are worthless pursuits. Hebrews 12:1-2
3. Set boundaries on the “good things” that can become time-consumers: work, activities, relationships, etc.
4. Spend lots of time listening for God’s voice. John 10:3-4
5. Identify perfectionist tendencies in your life (dwelling on past mistakes, fear of making decisions, hiding emotions, irrational worries, feelings of inferiority, insecurity, resistance to setting spiritual goals) and work to let go of them. Gal 3:3
6. Set realistic expectations for yourself and others.
7. Be sure your power source is God, not yourself. Work at letting Him be the One in control. Zech 4:6
If you’re serious about simplifying the chaos in your life to better hear from God, then take this challenge! Make your own “Weekly Plan”:
One thing I’m going to do well in order to make God a priority___________________________
One limit I’m going to set on the things that preoccupy me_______________________________
One pursuit of perfection that I’m going to drop_______________________________________
One power struggle I’m going to relinquish to God____________________________________
One thing I’m going to do well in order to make God a priority___________________________
One limit I’m going to set on the things that preoccupy me_______________________________
One pursuit of perfection that I’m going to drop_______________________________________
One power struggle I’m going to relinquish to God____________________________________
To reserve a copy of the audio CD of this message, email Rebecca Apodaca at apodacar@comcast.net.
