I am always surprised how "nothing" can fill our days! Does that happen to you? One indication that it is a common occurrence is how so many retired people have told me "I am busier now that I have retired."
How is that possible? You were working a job from 8:30 to 5:00 and spent 45 minutes commuting each way. So when you retired you gained 10 hours a day, 5 days a week yet you are now busier than ever? Hmmm, is that a huge exaggeration, are you wonderfully involved in extensive volunteer service, or have you filled your days with "nothing"?
Of course this is not an issue only for those who've retired. I have noticed over the years that I am far more efficient when there are pressing responsibilities that must be handled. From filling some hours with "nothing important", I simply use that time for important jobs. Instead of taking 6 hours to accomplish something, under pressure I focus, I concentrate and do that task in half the time.
Of course with all of us there is a limit. If we experience pressure to produce that is really beyond our limit, we may lose efficiency and in fact become terribly unproductive. We've all experienced hours like that: I have so much to do, I kind of "freeze" for a while and do nothing!
However that is the exception. Normally we need some "pressure" if we are to live well; if we are to live productive lives for the glory of God and the good of people we are called to serve.
How is that possible? You were working a job from 8:30 to 5:00 and spent 45 minutes commuting each way. So when you retired you gained 10 hours a day, 5 days a week yet you are now busier than ever? Hmmm, is that a huge exaggeration, are you wonderfully involved in extensive volunteer service, or have you filled your days with "nothing"?
Of course this is not an issue only for those who've retired. I have noticed over the years that I am far more efficient when there are pressing responsibilities that must be handled. From filling some hours with "nothing important", I simply use that time for important jobs. Instead of taking 6 hours to accomplish something, under pressure I focus, I concentrate and do that task in half the time.
Of course with all of us there is a limit. If we experience pressure to produce that is really beyond our limit, we may lose efficiency and in fact become terribly unproductive. We've all experienced hours like that: I have so much to do, I kind of "freeze" for a while and do nothing!
However that is the exception. Normally we need some "pressure" if we are to live well; if we are to live productive lives for the glory of God and the good of people we are called to serve.
"For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." II Corinthians 5:14, 15
I like the active word Paul uses in the first part of this passage. "For Christ's love compels (rules, controls) us." Paul is "under pressure" to love others, to serve them, to share the Good News with them. This Divine pressure is the love he has enjoyed from God. It is the love that he knows God has for others. It is the love that he feels for others because of God's work in him. How much God produced through Paul, because Paul lived intentionally under the pressure of Christ's love.
What a powerful yet tender pressure: to be controlled and compelled by Christ's love. I want His love to move me to be what I should be, to love as I should love, to do what I should do, to produce what He wants me to produce. This is the pressure that should motivate us so that good things fill our days, our minds, our hearts.
Under Christ's tough and tender love we will then "produce under pressure".
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