21st Century Overload

by Wilson Adams

INTRODUCTION

    Life in the year 2000 is missing two key essentials: time and space.  The time and space that once existed in the lives of people who lingered and talked over dinner, helped the kids with homework, visited with neighbors, went for walks in the evening, and always enjoyed a full night's sleep.  That sounds foreign to our hi-tech world.  Three truths seem to sum up our times:

People are exhausted!
People are stressed!
People are overloaded!

    We need more time..more space..more reserves..more buffer..more margin.

Question:
Is your life fun?
And
Have you built into your life
enough space and margin?

 

"I'm in a hurry to get things done, I rush and rush until life's no fun..." Alabama

We need to pay a visit to the Great Physician.   When we examine the life of Jesus, we learn much about how to handle time-accessibility-priorities, etc.  Jesus did NOT work 24-hour days.  Jesus did NOT heal every disease and meet every need.  Does that mean He was lazy or didn't care?  No.  It means that Jesus understood the limits of humanity.  You can't do everything.

Jesus teaches us that:
IT'S OKAY NOT TO BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE ALL THE TIME ALL BY OURSELVES.

Jesus understood that people have limits.  Do you?

1. LIMITS AND OVERLOAD

   LOAD

   MARGIN

   LIMIT

   1. Margin is the space we must have between our load and our limits.  It's breathing room.  The problem is that we fail often to leave enough breathing room.   From activities to debt to expectation to work, we keep piling it on as if we have no limits.  We not only spend more money than we have, we're spending more time and energy than we have!
      1. You must leave margin for error.  A failure to do so will result in:
         1. Loss of Christ-like attitudes, 1 Cor. 13:4.
         2. Loss of interest in others, Gal. 6:10.
         3. Loss of your health, 1 Cor. 6:19.
         4. Loss of family relationships, Deut. 6:7-9.
         5. Loss of spiritual availability, Rom. 12:6-13.
      2. 1 Cor. 10:31 sums up our purpose in life.  Unless we build in more margins, we will never be fully available and useful to God.
   2. Limits.  Do we have limits?  YES!  The Bible says God is unlimited, not man.  And the limits He places on us are designed to preempt any ambiguity about who God is and who is not.  Overload happens when we forget that.

 

2. CURSE OF PROGRESS

Progress, like everything else, can be good or bad.  And that downside has much to do the human tendency to overload.

1. Accessibility.  As telecommunications reshape our world, we sit at the dawn of a universal connectivity unprecedented in human history.  Cell phones, pagers, video-conferencing, fax machines, Internet, E-mail, the information highway -- can all be used for good or bad.  One of the worst features of modern technology is increased accessibility.  Privacy is going, going, GONE!
   1. The telephone.  How can you escape something as prevalent as mosquitoes and as audibly irritating as a chain saw?
   2. Then there are cell phones and pagers...

RX:  Learn to tame technology.  It is not a crime nor a sin not to answer the telephone.  Reestablish some private times with your family and yourself.  Jesus purposefully planned periods of solitude (Mk. 1:35; Lk. 5:16) and so should we.

2. Activity.  "Busy" is the primary description of modern lives.  (Have you noticed when two people meet, one or the other is sure to mention how busy he or she is?)  We tend to equate productivity and importance to busyness.   But the Bible presents a healthy BALANCE between (1) work, (2) rest, and (3) worship.  (Those principles were behind the Old Testament Sabbath law - Ex. 20:8ff).

RX:  Take control of your schedule. -- Or others will!
RX:  Learn to say "No".
RX:  Limit children's activities.  They have limits, too!

3. Choices---Choices---Choices  One of the paradoxes of our technical age is that we have more choices but less time to choose!  (Another paradox is that "time-saving" devices usually don't!)  So much of our time is spent in trivial decisions over an incredible amount of choices.  And then there is the problem of trying to keep up with the information glut.  The truth:  YOU CAN'T!   Give your brain a break!

RX:  Simplify your decision making.  Make decisions and stick with them.
RX:  See beyond the data-information-knowledge fascination to something much more useful:  WISDOM! Prov.2:6 GET BACK TO THE BIBLE!

Sign in a loan office:  "we will loan you enough money to get you completely out of debt."

4. Money.  "Affluenza" is the illness of modern day. Remember these three rules about values and money:

RX:  People are more important than things!
RX:  People are more important than things!
RX:  People are more important than things!

5. Media.  TV writes its own rules, 80% of current movies are PG-13 or R, MTV is totally negative , and Internet pornography poses a serious threat in every home.  Parents, take control!

RX:  Engage in a family media-fast.  No TV-videos-movies for a set period.   Get some sense back into your home (Rom. 12:9).

Because progress isn't going to change, we have to change and take back control of our lives and families (Lk. 10:41-42).  May God help us to get back to spiritual and sensible living.

Back