Beyond Sunday - You don't have what it takes: You can't handle it all

...by Randy Parish

I thought Bobby was using examples from my life on Sunday. I don’t know whether it was intentional or not, but the treadmill in the video was a good analogy of our lives. We go nowhere fast and it just plain wears us out and we are still where we started. I’ve never been blessed with the “no” gene. If someone asks me to take something on, I usually say yes. Another project, sure, another committee, no problem, another meeting, absolutely, another problem, bring it on. I’ve never figured out the deep seated reason why I do that. I blame it on heredity, because my Dad was like that. I’m just glad I have a wife that steps in and says, sure you can take that on, but what are you going to give up to do that. She’s figured out that the plate is only so big and if something new comes, something old goes. There are always more things that need done. How many times do we hear people say “If only I had more time”, or maybe “There aren’t enough hours in a day”. I don’t want more hours in a day, because I would probably fill them up. I sometimes envy people that lead these seemingly very noble lives involved in many great causes and still have time to spare.

For the last 5 years, I have worked in Indianapolis. It was to the point, my wife and I decided I needed more margin in my life particularly from the driving back and forth. So we prayed about it and put our house up for sale and found a house and a lot where we were going to build and my commute would be short and I could add 4 hours back into my day. (Probably to take on other things but I didn’t say that out loud.) We combined two of the sermon points together on this decision: Some things need to be stopped and Everything needs to be Surrendered. Well, our house didn’t sell and the frustration grew. In December in God’s own sense of humor and timing, I had an opportunity to actually take another position in the company and now work from home. My one way commute went from 2 hours down to 45 seconds and I walk downstairs to my office.

We don’t have what it takes to handle it all. There will always be things that need to be done. There will always be things we can add to our “To Do” list. We need to start adding things to our “to don’t” list.

Psalms 55:22 Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you.

You can’t handle it all.