Overcommitted Lifestyles (Part 1)

By Brian Mitchell     One of the most dangerous tendencies of the average American today is the tendency to over commit themselves. Unfortunately, this is a problem that has affected the Lord’s people as well. Often we commit to too many activities and concerns that are unrelated to the work of the Lord and thus hinder us in our abilities to serve the Lord effectively and fruitfully. Many times we find ourselves in the same predicament as Martha—Lk.10:41-42.     Unlike the other problems we have discussed, the difficulty in dealing with this particular problem, is not that we don’t recognize that we have it. “Being too busy is a lot like the weather; everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.” Overcommitted lives are is one of main culprits in the weakening of our spiritual health and effectiveness. Because our lifestyles are often overcrowded, we have little time for spiritual renewal and growth. Because we are busily engaged in going to and fro we have little time left to commit to that which is most important in life.     Why are we so busy? Two of the primary reasons we are so overloaded is our materialistic addictions and our overemphasis on recreation and entertainment. We spend so much time working, building a career and making money. We spend too much time on entertainment, recreation, sports, travels, and hobbies. Result—we have little time left to devote to the work of the Lord—including building up ourselves spiritually, strengthening our brethren, worshiping the Lord, and seeking the lost.     Are over committed lifestyles really a problem for us? We often tend to make light of the problem of overcrowded lifestyles with the excuse that it is only a temporary situation. The Problem—the situation is usually not temporary. “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary situation.” While we may convince ourselves that we are only working too much, playing too much, and doing everything else under the sun too much for a while; the fact is that we seem to move from one set of busy circumstances to another.     The result is that life often becomes an unbroken chain of temporarily overcommitted situations. Even when our overcrowded lives do only last for a time, the problem is that during those times we often miss many opportunities; some of which we will never get again. Our ability to say no to ourselves in relation to our commitments, in many cases closely resembles addictive behavior. “We are suffering the negative effects of a culture that offers too much choice.” “Rather than mastering our activities, they are mastering us.”     Many Americans, and sadly some Christians, live by two basic and mistaken assumptions. We assume that we have the right to do anything we want to do—we don’t. We believe that there is a way to do everything we want to do without our priorities suffering—there isn’t. The word sacrifice is often not even allowed to enter into our minds when we are contemplating the things we want to do. We often lament that we just don’t have enough time to do everything we need to do, and if something has to get cut from the list, more times than not it is those spiritually related activities we should be involved in.     The fact is that we all get only 168 hours per week and finding the time to do everything we need to do is not a problem of how much time we have, it is a problem with how we spend the time we have. No one can do all of the things they want to do, without shortchanging some of the things they need to do. Some choices have to be made, and some possibilities have to be given up.

- Brian Mitchell serves as a minister with the Jackson Church of Christ in Jackson, MO. He may be contacted through the congregation's website at https://www.jacksonchurchofchrist.net