Time Out

[featured_image]
Sometimes you need to stop and take a time out.

We all need to exercise the option to push the “pause” button now and then.

This may be for a moment as you pause and reflect or even pause and refresh yourself before moving forward.

It also may be for an evening (or afternoon, or a weekend if possible) to just unplug and gain perspective.

How do you take time for yourself? How do you make sure you have enough margin in your life?

If you don’t take a time out — you might just crash and burn!

I’m not trying to sound dramatic, I really believe this is true.

Recently my wife and I were talking about the need to take a break — to stop pushing so hard and so fast to slow down and get a break. A real one. Maybe even an extended one.

When I was planting Lake Hills Church, I felt there was a season after I had pushed long and hard to get the church started when God said to me – “It’s time for a time out.”
I didn’t get it at first. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just keep pushing on.

But then I began to understand more fully that who I am is so much more important than what I do for God. God is more concerned with my character than he is with my productivity. God doesn’t love me more for all I try to do for God.

Somehow I thought that God was pleased by all my efforts and hard work. He took a “time out” to work on me (the stuff inside) so that He could work through me.

I learned a lot during that time out. I continued to pastor the church, but I kept my focus on being rather than simply doing. I’d love to say that I’ve learned all I needed to learn and that there aren’t any more time outs in my future. But that’s not true.

God’s going to keep working on me so He can work through me (when He chooses to use me — and He doesn’t need to.)

I’m not the key to God’s strategy for reaching the world. I just want to be obedient to do my part.

How about you?

Is it time for you to take a time out?

What area of your life is God working on?