Youth Group Messages

Are you too busy

I had the honor of speaking to my youth group on Sunday night. My topic was "Are you too busy" with Psalm 90 as my Sermon Reference. I think it went well. Here's the lesson, small group questions are at the bottom.

Balance. Rest. Family. Priorities. Schedules. Work. School. . Relationships. All of these words are words we use to describe and identify what we value. Every New Year's Day we make our resolutions, and for the most part, every year, those first three words are at the top of the list. We say we want to find balance in our lives, to find more time for rest so we're not so exhausted, and we say we're going to put our families first, but then those other words find their way into the mix, and usually by, oh, January 31st, we're running around complaining of no time. So how do we find this elusive term called balance? Does God place any importance on this? Does God even care about how busy our lives are and if so, what does HE say about it? God has quite a bit to say to be honest. That's what we're going to dig into tonight.

I'm probably the worst one to talk about balance and the question of "are we too busy"? You see, if you didn't know already, I'm a bit of a workaholic. I know, shocker. If you follow me on Facebook, you would have probably noticed me complaining about having to work a double shift occasionally, but I've actually slowed down from what I used to work. In college I usually had a 12-15 credit hour load, and then worked an average 20-30 hours per week, which is totally doable, but then I also added about 10-15 hours of ministry with Thomas Road Middle school department. I can also tell you about how when I first got out of the Army, I worked for the YMCA in a before school program from 6:30 am-8am, then two – three days a week I'd fill in at a nursery school until about 2:30, because at 3 I had to be at another school to work at an after school program until 6. Oh, and two to three nights a week I'd work overnight as a security guard at a nursing home from 7p-7am.

With all of that, I've learned quite a bit about burnout, about what it means to over commit, and I've learned hard lessons on the importance of balance and rest; most of all though, I've learned that I can't do it all, and GOD doesn't expect me to do it all. Psalms 90 has some interesting things to say, and the first time I read it through, only two or three verses really jumped out at me. That verse is verse 1o:

Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

People look at this verse and say: "wow, I've got to pack a lot of living in a short time, because once I hit age____, I may not be able to do the same things" and before you know, they're a workaholic, and the only relationships they have are temporary or surface. The problem with "cherry picking" verses to fit a world view is that it's often taken out of context. Let's take a look at Psalm 90.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

I could hang out on this verse forever, but I'll keep it simple. When David says the Lord is "our dwelling Place", he's saying "Lord, you are home." God is our home. Think about that for a minute. Maybe, for whatever reason, you feel out-of-place, you feel disconnected, but if you're a child of GOD, then wherever you are, you're home, because GOD is our HOME. That's a weird concept, but in verse two it says BEFORE. GOD was before everything and HE is from everlasting to everlasting. The GOD, who created us, is our dwelling place.

POINT 1: GOD is timeless, the one permanent and stable presence in this whole universe.

3. You turn people back to dust, saying, "Return to dust, you mortals."
4 A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.