Prioritizing Your Schedule
Posted on August 14, 2011
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
-Matthew 6:33
In these tough economic times, I know I’m not the only one who’s realized the need to create a weekly budget to help keep me on track financially. Without a definite course charted out I often find it difficult to stay motivated and am very liable to spend a little bit more money than is appropriate on unnecessary things, such as eating out and texting.
In the same way, it’s often necessary for a Christian to budget their time in order to maintain a close relationship with God. If you are regularly missing out on prayer, Bible study and church due to a supposed lack of time, then consider putting your facebook account on hold for a while and reprioritizing your schedule. Put God first and make everything else revolve around His place in your heart.
“And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.”
-Mark 9:43
For some of you, finding time to spend with God might mean setting your alarm 20 minutes early next week and trying to remember where you last had your Bible. For others, you may have to do nothing more than close your web browser after reading this post and go implement what you’ve just read. Whatever sacrifice you find necessary, just remember that it is no sacrifice to have a relationship with the living God. “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” (Luke 17:10)
38 responses to Prioritizing Your Schedule
Thank you for the reminder to use our time in a goodly fashion. Our life is short, so we need to use our time wisely, not wasting any of it. Like Nicolas said, the last part hit quite hard. Many times, that is what I should do. We should want to do this, since having a deeper relationship with God is much better than spending time on things that won't profit us. Thanks again for the wonderful reminder!
Off to Bible memorization....
How important is a personal relationship with God it is the life and breath of the Christian. To rise up early before it is day and to spend time in prayer should be the life and breath of every Christian person. Although I am a firm believer in Memorizing Scripture I am becoming convinced that prayer may even be more important. Also to spend time with family is vitally important save time for your family Christ wants Him and His words to be present with us but that does not mean to be always memorizing.
This has nothing to do with any of this, but one of my cousins signed up but he hasn't received an e-mail to activate his account. Is there anything we can do?
vburk - I've activated your cousin's account. The email address was misspelled so I corrected it and activated the account. Hopefully that sorts it out.
@God's little child--Absolutely right. Memorization of God's Word is vital, but a personal relationship with the One who wrote it is even more important. But for anyone who is having trouble comprehending the challenge of memorizing the whole Bible, I just did some calculations today...
If you take 2.5 hours every day to memorize verses (which is only a little more than one-sixth of daylight hours alone), you can spend a whopping 3.125 days per month memorizing Scripture! 2 hours would be 2.5 days, 1.5 hours=1.875 days, 1 hour=1.25 days, and a mere 30 minutes per day would equal .625 days per month. These may seem like a lot, but when would you plan to do this? In a mere hour and a half this morning (at 6:00 to 7:30) I memorized roughly twelve verses. Add thirty to this (one month) and I could memorize 360 verses in a month! Would anyone (who doesn't already, that is) be willing to wake up at 6:00 every day or earlier? Funnily enough, this would be the normal weekday latest for me to get up--I usually get up at 4:30 or so. You may not be able to memorize a whole lot in an hour, but how much could you memorize in 1.25 days?
There is absolutely no need for anyone to do this (this is probably just another one of my crazy ideas), but anyone who is willing to take up yet another SavedByGrace challenge can do this. But even if you don't get up early, isn't there time somewhere in your schedule for an hour of memorization, along with time with God in His Word? Just another crazy thought for any crazy people like me...but how else are we supposed to "turn the world upside-down"? :)
P.S.You could also just follow Dakota's advice and merely set your alarm for 20 minutes earlier every day--any extra time at all can be spent in God's Word!
Nicolas...where do you get all this time??? LOL Just kidding
I know this is off topic but here it goes...can we have 2 or 3 Bible Bee quizzes in these last two weeks? And if we do a 1 PETER quiz, we should have multiple choice to pick from.
think I have 28 verses left....please pray I'll get them done this week so I can spend week 12 reviewing etc.
Rachel Crosswhite--I find the time! :) I try to remind myself that this is of eternal importance, not just something that I should feel obligated to do. Plus, getting up early helps... ;)
I think it's a great idea to have a few extra quizzes soon. There are only a few verses left to memorize for those of us on track, so a few big review days would be helpful. I agree with the 1 Peter quiz suggestion as well.
I'll pray for you and everyone else as we draw nearer to the local Bible Bee. A lot of pressure starts to come when you start to realize you have a short time limit. Also, I still have 83 verses left, so I could use some prayer here as well... :)
P.S.Congratulations for memorizing your twentieth verse and reaching Level 5!
thanks Nicolas for the congrats on 20th verse and level 5! :) It seemed like a big accomplishment =D
I'll pray for you as well :) And I was joking about finding the time... :) And I know what you mean about the pressure...I felt so pressured the other day and today I do...You realize..."Oh NO! only 2 weeks till contest day, And I'm so behind!!!" Did you have trouble memorizing Ezra 7:27-28, Jeremiah 17:7-8, and the ones from Isaiah and the Epistles ??? I'm still working on Ezra and Jere...simply awful.
Rachel Crosswhite--Strangely enough, those ones weren't very hard for me. ;) But I definitely have had some hard ones--especially Psalm 106:4-5, Romans 6:4-7, and many of the verses in the gospels. The verses in the prophetic books are hard to keep track of as well, though. And for some reason, I keep thinking Ezra and Nehemiah are in the prophets...
P.S. Memverse has now memorized 76,000 verses!
P.P.S. Never mind, it just went down. But I'm sure it will go back up soon!
P.P.P.S. It's back up! Let's see if we can get to 100,000 soon...
EDITED--You can call me either Nicolas or SavedByGrace--whichever is more comfortable to say. Also, I didn't get the Bible Bee CD, so I guess I don't have the same problem. And yes, we certainly are all very different. :)
Nicolas... (do you want me to call you Nicolas?!) We are all different...for some odd reason my brain won't grasp hold of them as easily as the others :( The verses I am having the most difficultly with are the ones that are not on the Bible Bee CD
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the comments here are with regard to memorisation, but I would like to take up the point made by God's little child about the importance of prayer. In my home group we are working our way through J C Ryle's Walking with God and in chapter 4 he is most insistent that the most important activity for any disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is prayer (I can highly recommend the book) In the UK we have suffered some violent unrest recently as many of you will be aware, but many of our brothers and sisters around the world live with much worse on a daily and ongoing basis. May I encourage all to make private prayer a priority, there is a great need and we have a great and gracious God who will always listen. (I can recommend the Barnabas Fund website for several good prayer resources.)
Mr Walker...if you see this can you tell me...your website (http://www.scripture-memory-support.org/index.html) were the events for this year or for 2009?
@Mr. Walker: I requested your newsletter but I don't know if you got it. Would you please put me on the list to receive your newsletter?
HI guys! Have ya missed me? Sorry I haven't been able to get on for a while but I was stuck in bed with a "stomach virus" (but it wasn't, we just thought it was) from Sunday night to Wednesday morning. I still wasn't feeling good so my family took me to the doctor. They did an X-ray and sent me to Tanner Hospital. They did a CT scan and found out i had ruptured appendicitis and it was really bad. They sent me in an ambulance to Scottish Rite and did surgery. So now I'm stuck in bed for about a week with tubes stuck everywhere in me...sorry I missed the Friday Bible Bee Quizzes...I probably won't even be able to compete in the Local Bee this year. I am SO disappointed!
@Rachel Crosswhite - your brother is SO cute!!
@BibleBeeJunior11, I am so glad you have been diagnosed and will pray for you. I pray wisdom for your Drs. as well! I hope you are feeling better real soon! I am sure you will have lots of Mermory Verse Practice time! Get Better Soon! God Bless You!
Wow, BBJ11, I will defiantly be praying for you too! Hope you feel better and can come to Locals.
BibleBeeJunior11 - We have missed you and will pray for you to be feeling better. My brother had has appendix rupture a few years ago too... I hope you feel better soon and that the verses would be an encouragement to you.
I'll be praying for you, BBJ11! I've never had an injury quite like that, but I think I might be able to sympathize anyway. May God be with you as you go through this! I hope you can make it to the locals... but even if you don't, give God glory in everything! (It'll probably be a lot easier to memorize verses if you're sitting in bed all day, though...;) )
Oh, BibleBeeJunior11....how awful!!! A ruptured appendicitis!!! although I've never had to be in the hospital for anything...I feel for you!! I'm praying for you ... I hope SO bad you make it to the Locals...
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.
2 Thess. 3:16
BibleBeeJunior11, I'll certainly be praying for you! I have had appendicitis, it's not fun at all. My appendix didn't rupture though. If I would have waited 6-12 more hours it would have. SO SORRY. I will be praying that you will be able to compete in the locals anyway. I will also pray for a speedy recovery. I was going to say something, but it would probably make you laugh, and that wouldn't be good. So remind me when you get better and I'll tell you.
Thanks to all who are praying! :)
@Rachel Crosswhite - amen! I would soooo love to be able to go to locals but...
@vburk - ruptured appendicitis is sooo not fun...:) haha, yeah, 2 clowns visited me yesterday and made me laugh sooooooooooo hard that my stomach hurt so bad! Then we watched Little Rascals and I laughed even harder! Aghhh...and then this morning I dropped a book on my stomach. Bummer.
Thanks again for praying!
I will be praying for you BibleBeeJunior11!!
God's Word will never return void.
Even if you dont make it to locals you have already won the greater prize, memorizing God's Word and presevering through trials. The Lord be with you and encourage your heart by His grace!!
Oh I'm sorry BBJ11 I will DEFINITELY be praying. This is probablly for the best and remember your in God's hands. If you come to the local bee maybe God's preventing a car accident you never know. God bless you
Thank you so much for praying guys! Hopefully I'll be on MemVerse.com soon...more often...:)
That's so terrible, BBJ11! Just remember God's sovereignty. He's in control. He had this happen for a reason. Probably, in a few months, you'll look back and see the big picture, and know that what God did was best. But even if it remains a mystery all the rest of your life, you'll just have to trust Romans 8:28--that He's doing it for your good and for His glory.
I'll be praying that you get better soon! I so hope you can recover by Saturday! I could tell you were working very hard. Keep studying, just in case! ;)
BBJ11, Jacky and I prayed for you and will continue to pray for you. We hope you can participate on Saturday. I love Christian's thoughts and reminding all of us of the truth and comfort of a ROMANS 8:28 All-Loving, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, good God.
UPDATE: Hi guys! We get to go home today! 7 days in a hospital is enough for me! But I do feel sorry for all those kids who have to stay here for weeks, months...my mom met a woman whose little sister (???) has been here for like 5 years or something...:( So sad. Thanks for praying! And for all those who are wondering, no, my dad decided not to let me do the contest Saturday (I wouldn't have been able to make it to the church, the lady was going to call the headquarters and see if they could send someone to my house or wherever I am and test me there) because he was afraid that I would get too stressed and it might mess up whatever they did in my stomach for the appendicitis...oh well, there's always next year! :)
@ BBJ11: Oh, I so hope that works out, so you can still participate. Maybe then you'd make it to Nationals and be able to participate there. There's a Junior contestant at our NE Ohio church who got to Nationals last year, but currently he has cancer and is always at the hospital, and most likely he won't make it either.
I'm praying for you!
@BBJ11, so sorry!! Remember though that it is not the Bible Bee contest that is important. It is what you learned and memorized over the summer that is important. And by the way, you're right. Seven days in the hospital is way to long!!!!!!!!!! I was only in two days and one night, but that was plenty! Hope you get to feeling better soon! So glad you get to go home! Hope your bedroom isn't upstairs!
@BBJ11- That's too bad! Well, you can at least know that all the hard work you put into it won't go to waste, eh? I'm sure all that BB memorization has brought you closer to God! Hopefully, they can test you privately- who knows? Maybe you'd do even better that way!
I also wanted to say that this post has inspired me to be more aggressive with my Bible memorization! Thanks a lot everyone! An interesting note: According to my numbers, Memverse users have memorized the entire Bible 2.5 times! Of course, that's not every single verse (probably...), but it's still pretty cool!
P.S. BBJ11- I'll still be praying for your continued recovery and that God would use this time to draw you even closer to Himself. God Bless!
Thank you guys for praying! We got to come home yesterday afternoon (as posted on the other blog comments) and it is so nice to be home. Everyone is happier here now that the whole family is back together again. :)
@Rachel Crosswhite - no, Mrs. Williams (host) said she would call and see if they could but my dad said it would probably stress me out too much so, no, they didn't come...:(
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Thanks, Dakota! That last part--the "close your web browser after reading this post and go implement what you've just read" hit quite hard. The only time I spend on the computer is on Memverse, but I still usually spend way too much time on it--and usually not memorizing verses. I'm definitely going to be re-prioritizing my schedule. Thanks for the encouragement to keep living only for God!