{This post is part of my 31 Day blog series Work Hard + Rest Well: Learning Obedience in the Rhythms of Work and Rest.}
There came a point at the end of last year where I broke down. I couldn’t keep going like I had been, and I couldn’t keep lying to myself…
I was unproductive.
I was disorganized.
I was lazy.
I worked, but I didn’t work hard.
Have you been there? Is there a nagging sense of laziness plaguing you? Are there specific things that you do that you try to justify or hide from others because you know they probably aren’t good habits?
And there is a giant difference between wrongful guilt and ignoring the truth. I was ignoring the truth.
The truth was that most mornings I spent 15-45 minutes on social media before even getting out of bed.
The truth was that I interrupted my 30 Bible study time more than two or three times every day to text someone or post to social media.
The truth was that my writing time was spent half writing and half watching a tv show that was playing in the background.
The truth was that I was trying to make my work not feel like work, but I wasn’t trying to make my work more productive.
The truth was that I was being lazy.
And then I spent the last few minutes before my husband got home running around the house doing all the things with my heart pounding and guilt screaming through my mind…every day.
There is grace for bad days and then there is when your bad days are most of the days and you realize that your bad days are actually bad habits. I wasn’t a lazy person, but I had developed lazy habits. And I found that I wasn’t truly enjoying the lazy moments or the working moments, and the guilt from my lazy moments was overtaking my rest moments.
Are you lazy?
Do you have bad days or bad habits? Are you justifying your answer?
Do you feel stressed out during your rest times because you know you weren’t very productive during your work times?
Do you feel stressed out during the end of your work times because you worked too half-heartedly during the beginning of your work times?
Do you finish your work and feel guilty because you know it should have been done sooner or better?
Do you try to make your work easier or more productive?
As I wrote out prayers and plans and goals at the beginning of this year, I couldn’t ignore it any more. So I journaled prayers admitting to God that I was being lazy, and I felt physical pain in putting down the words. And it is physically painful for me to write now that I’ve backslid some from the good habits I fought so hard to form at the beginning of this year.
It’s because I’ve started falling back into my lazy habits more and more frequently that I chose this topic.
Work Hard + Rest Well
I needed to review and relearn all that God had been teaching me this year. I needed to grow even more in this area and dig even deeper with God in this theology of work and rest.
Are you there?
If you are not there, keep it up! But if you, like me, are finding yourself increasingly characterized by habits of laziness, let’s be honest with ourselves and honest with God.
Write your confession or say it out loud.
Identify behaviors that are the opposite of the lazy behaviors.
Ask God for His help to change you.
And praise God for His unrelenting grace.
Are you lazy? There is grace upon grace for you and me.
We don’t need to hide our lazy habits in guilt anymore. Bring them out freely before God and even others. Let your heart be washed of the guilt and then allow God to build new rhythms of work and rest into you life.
You will find freedom.
Be blessed
<3
