Finding Balance while Managing your Home

“Just remember, moderation is the key” is what my dad wrote on my 21^st birthday card. Although he was trying to give me some helpful advice as I ventured out into the world of cocktails, white wine and craft beer, I have found this advice helpful in many areas of my life. 

There is one area though, where this advice does not apply: faith. We are not to approach our faith in God in moderation. In fact, our relationship with God should be THE most important part of our life. Our daily activities, decisions, thoughts, and behaviors should spill from our love of God. 

How do we make God the center of our lives while managing a million other things that at times, seem to have no connection to our faith? 

How do we keep a balanced lifestyle and still keep God as our number one priority?

How do we keep a balanced lifestyle when our to-do list is longer than our grocery receipt and has everything on it including calling your mom, deadlines at work, shopping, exercising, church activities and date nights? 

The problem with my to-do list is time. I feel overwhelmed because I simply do not have the time in the day or week to complete all of the tasks on my to-do list.  That is discouraging.  I decided I needed a plan to make my 2015 productive, balanced, and Christ-centered.

Here is my 2015 Homemaking Resolution:

1.       Incorporate prayer in to every activity of my day. In addition to beginning my day with a quiet time, I want to meet up with God in the shower, in the car, on a walk with the dog, while playing with my son, and while cooking. There is no place where God and I can’t hang out. 

2.       Prioritize my daily to-do list based on my values and my beliefs. We can’t do it all, so we have to pick and choose based on what is most important to us and to God. By surveying your to-do lists based on your faith and your family values, it becomes easier to cross off, eliminate, or post-pone any activities that are less important.

3.       Know that my perfectly planned to-do list can change in a second. There will always be unexpected events that happen in our life. We cannot control or prevent them from happening; however, we can control how we react to them. The more balanced and centered you are in your daily activities and the more grounded you are in God, the less frenzied you will feel when the unexpected event happens. 

4.       Bring WWJD into my decision making. Another key ingredient to staying balanced is being smart about what we say yes and no to. Moms and wives often times end up being the manager of the home life; making all the plans for travel, parties, play dates, bible studies, date nights and acts of service. We constantly have to make decisions which usually involve a yes, we will do that or no, we will not do that. There have been many occasions where I have said yes to something because it felt like the right thing to do, only to end up overwhelmed, stressed and in a sour mood. In the New Year, I want to pause and pray before making any decision, big or small. I want to ask the age old question: what would Jesus do? What does God want me to do? What is best for my family and I?

Being busy is not necessarily better, and being bored is not always a good thing. It’s all about bringing God into your home manager duties and finding out what He wants you to do. After all, God knows us better than we know ourselves!

Making New Year’s resolutions is all about being a better person in the New Year. Often times people will add something that they think will make them a better person or they eliminate something from their life which they think they would be better off without. However, I believe it can be so much more than that.

What if we changed the way we lived by living a balanced lifestyle from Gods point of view, involving Him in our decision making, to-do lists, and unexpected emergencies. I think it’s possible; will you give it a try?

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own". (Matthew 6:33).  

This post is linked up to the following Linkups: http://whatjoyismine.net/

http://cornerstoneconfessions.com/ http://equippinggodlywomen.com/