Barriers: Time & Obligations

Last updated on January 21, 2023

Welcome to the second post in our series about barriers to spiritual investment. Last time we talked about how our expectations of time can stop us from investing spiritually, and we challenged ourselves to make a shift from chronos thinking about time to kairos thinking about time.

Today, we will continue our discussion of time as a barrier, but we will explore how our obligations affect the time we are able to give to spiritual investment.

If you feel like your time isn’t your own, there’s not enough time to do all the things you need to do, or that the idea of adding one more thing to your to-do list might just break you, this post is for you.

When you feel like your time isn’t your own

Oh friend, if you’re in this place, please know you are not alone. So many of us are in it with you. With the commitments and obligations in our full and busy lives, it’s no wonder that we feel like everyone and everything else owns us. How are we supposed to carve out a piece of time for spiritual investment? Even if we understand how essential and important it is to our well-being and growth?

I want to encourage us here, that when we feel like others have all the control of our time, the truth is quite the opposite.

No person gets your time unless you give to them. No activity gets your time unless you choose to use it that way. While we can often feel compelled, for various reasons, to give our time in certain ways, what we decide to do with it is still our own choice.

We can feel trapped. Enslaved to our obligations. But freedom is available to us. We just need to start looking at the chains and seeing them for what they are. Then moving away from them.

Let’s ask ourselves the question, “Am I giving my time away where and how I want to give it away?”

Our first impulse may be to think we have to give our time away to certain things, but we don’t. I recognize that in our American Western culture, this is an extremely difficult idea. We can feel we are at the mercy of the workforce. Or we are at the mercy of the government. Or we are at the mercy of what our mamas and daddys taught us were supposed to be doing.

But we’re not.

We might even feel like we’re at the mercy of what church leaders told us we’re supposed to be doing with our spiritual investment time.

We’re not. We’re at the mercy of God.

And how great is his mercy!

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16 CSB

Because he finds us in this place where we are stretched too thin, and he meets with us here and he has compassion for us here and he has understanding for how we got here and how it enslaves us. And more than anything, the God of the Universe wants your freedom from anything that enslaves you and is not good for you.

Ever present with those who seek him, he guides us on the way out of slavery.

How do your obligations make you feel?

I’m a big fan of paying attention not only to our thoughts, but also our feelings. Our feelings often tell us the truth that our minds can’t discover on their own. If you’re not a touchy-feely sort of personality, bear with me. It’s important, I promise.

When you are reflecting on your time obligations, what are the feelings that rise up in you? You might need to slow down enough to write them down or speak them out loud. Feelings are slippery things. They’re sometimes difficult to grasp if we don’t record them in some concrete way. However uncomfortable, sit with them and ask yourself where they are coming from.

Here are some typical (i.e. my own) emotions you might discover about your current obligations:

• Anger
• Resentment
• Sadness
• Regret
• Ashamed
• Bitterness
• Disappointment
• Disgust

Ask yourself where those are coming from. Why does that obligations make you angry, sad, bitter, etc.?

Take all the time you need to really sort through this. It’s probably not going to happen the first time you think through it. Give yourself the space to marinate and become more aware of yourself. Bring it up at your next therapy appointment, even.

What matters to you?

Then, when you’re ready, set your list aside and start asking yourself what matters to you, in general. Are there certain things that you feel are being neglected? Perhaps important relationships? Perhaps things that you feel you’ve been designed and built for that your current engagement is not utilizing?

How important is spiritual investment to you? Don’t just put it at the top of the list because some church guy told you ages ago that it’s supposed to be your first priority.

Been there, done that. Doesn’t play out well. Let me save you the pain.

Now, I’m not saying spiritual investment shouldn’t be your first priority. What I am saying is it should be the priority where you place it. Not where someone else has placed it. It may not be your first priority now, but it hopefully will be some day.

If spiritual investment is ever going to become your first priority, it needs to be there because you put it there not because someone else told you it’s supposed to go there.

Because if not, you’re not living your life. You’re living the life someone else told you you have to live. That’s just not sustainable. And it’s a bit fake.

God’s not looking for fake followers. God’s looking for genuine hearts that have turned toward him. People that are looking and finding and enjoying his company. So if that’s what spiritual investment needs to look like, then we need to figure out how important that is to us.

What else is important? What else matters, to you, in this season? Maybe you have a new job. Maybe you’re really excited about that job and it’s more than just something that pays your bills for you. Maybe working hard at that job and using those skills you learned in school are really important to you. Do your work for the Lord!

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. …. Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.

Colossians 3:17,23-24 CSB

Maybe you’ve just gotten married. Maybe that partnership with that new spouse is a very high priority for you. Building a relationship that’s supposed to last a lifetime is a lot of hard, focused, intentional work. It is spiritual investment in one of the most precious pictures of the unity of the body of Christ. Is there time for that? Does it matter to you to make time for that?

Maybe your priority is friendships that build you up, challenge you, and are there for you and you are there for them. Are there friends that you haven’t had any time with for ages because you’ve been bogged down in all of the other junk that doesn’t matter to you as much? Are there new friendships you’d like to build, but your obligations are getting in the way?

Maybe it’s children. Maybe you’ve just had your first kid or your second kid or your third kid. And you’re dealing with the non-stop needs of that season. The struggle is real, and of all life seasons, this is one of the most difficult to believe you can make room for other things. But it is possible. Don’t lose hope.

Whatever the things are that matter to you, make a list of them. Maybe make a feelings breakdown of how those would make you feel if you gave them more time. If you feel like you’re “not allowed” to give time to those things, ask yourself why. Write down the answers you discover. Let your feelings show you where you are beginning and be a student of the insight they can teach you.

Take it to God

Now I’m going to challenge you to pray about it all. The way your current obligations make you feel. The list of what matters to you, and how those things make you feel, or might make you feel if you had more time for them.

Do it right now. While you’re reading this post. Talk to God about each thing, one at a time. It doesn’t matter what you sound like, or the words you say, but here’s a little guide to help you along if you’re not sure how to begin:

God this matters to me…Is this what you want to matter to me? How do I make room for this?

If in that prayer time you’re feeling the ropes that are tied to you and pulling you in directions that don’t matter as much to you talk to him about that too.

Help me see how to remove the unnecessary ropes from my life. Are there any ropes tying me down that I don’t notice? Old, destructive ways of thinking? Wounds from my past that still affect my behavior today? Wounds I am continuing to experience today that need to come out of the darkness into the light so they can be healed?

You may need to ask him any number of things. Ask him. I don’t know you. I don’t know your heart. I can’t tell you what those things are. All I can do is generalize things that are typical problems that most of us deal with.

But I know the God who knows you, even if you don’t know him so well just yet. I know that when you talk to him, he will respond to you. Maybe not in out loud words like a person sitting at a coffee house with you might do, but his Spirit will speak to your spirit.

When you are genuinely seeking what he might want for you and your life.

When you are genuinely asking questions.

When you are genuinely exposing what matters to you and your heart to him.

He will show up. He may not give you all of the answers at once, but he will give you the answers that you need for this season.

Take it with you

So that’s my challenge for us today as we think about time and obligations.

What are you obligated to? What matters to you? How do those make you feel, and where do those not match up? Go talk to God about it. Wait and listen for his response. It will come.

I look forward to seeing you again next week as we finish up the portion of our series on time as a barrier to spiritual investment. We’ll cover some practical steps for redeeming our time and buying it back from all the places where it is currently enslaved. I hope you’ll join me. In the meantime you can participate in the conversation on Instagram @rootsnlight or on Facebook @rootsnlight. I hope to see you there!

Blessings in Christ,