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ork-life Integration

5

PREPARATION

• Read Chapter 5 ‘Work–Life Balance’ in God at Work• Watch the conversation starter “Living Well”:

www.godatwork.org.uk/wellbeing

SESSION OBJECTIVE

• Gain awareness of our changing society • Learn to see that focusing on your calling helps to prioritise • Find ways to live a healthy lifestyle, one where there is room for others and

for you • Find ways to lead a lifestyle with less stress.

WELCOME

PRAYER

STATEMENT

The objective of time management is not to do more, but to improve the quality of life.

What are your thoughts on this statement? Do you recognise this in your own life? Start a short discussion on this statement and ask two or three participants to briefly share their thoughts.

THE INTERACTIVE INTRODUCTION – PART 1

Many people feel that they cannot do everything that they believe they need to do. They struggle with time and with balancing this time between work, family, church, leisure and other things. How can we learn to deal with this and make changes?

HOW SHOULD I ORGANISE MY LIFE? (The sections below up until ‘Balance’ are inspired by Paul Donders’s book Creative Life Planning.)

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Different outlooks:

• Life as a production process

You see yourself as a production means that needs to produce enough to please God and those around you. This seems to give little fulfilment and has no resemblance with God’s vision for humanity.

And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. (Acts 17:25)

• Working and living as though we must climb high and be greatly successful, today also referred to as ‘status anxiety’ (Alain de Botton)

Status anxiety is a fear of not being able to climb up high enough on the social ladder, or of loosing social status. This fear results from high expectations held by both others and ourselves. Everyone is believed to have equal opportunities, and as a consequence is held responsible for their own personal success. Success is the objective, and the fear of not achieving this is what we call status anxiety, an anxiety that can take control of your life.

The Bible has a different outlook: • this life is about love, relationships, equality, justice, goodness and loyalty; • puts the happiness that we gain from social success into perspective;• everyone is equal, though different (1 Corinthians 12); • life is not something that we as human beings can create and control;• the blessings, happiness and the ability to enjoy our lives are gifts from God.(For more on this topic see the Old Testament book Ecclesiastes)

That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 3:13)

• Life as an artist, a life based on quality and passion

This means gaining a gradual understanding of life from the expertise and opportunities that you have. You grow in steps: Student > Assistant > Master > Artist

As a student, you learn a trade; watch how others perform the trade. You learn basic skills, and if you are committed to learning these skills, you grow and reach the next step and develop as an assistant and become a professional in your trade and in life.

You can develop further and become a master in your profession, and serve others through your way of life. And you can still grow more and become an artist. An artist goes far beyond talent and enthusiasm. An artist creates things that do not yet exist, things that are new, and devotes energy to his or her art.

As a precious and unique child of God the Father, you can design your own life. You can create your life in a unique new way; as a witness for God, you can be a creator in your own right.

No artwork is more meaningful than the life of a Christian. (Paul Donders)

The Christian’s life is to be a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing world. (Francis Schaeffer)

If you take this realisation and these two quotes as reference points in your life, your life will develop in a completely different way and you will start experiencing life in a different way, too.

CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE AND NEW CHALLENGES ARISEMost of us have grown up with the mentality that stability is the generally accepted norm. But now we need to adapt to circumstances that seem to be everything but stable:

• there is an enormous increase of knowledge, which leads to changes in our profession and to how we should approach our old knowledge;

• there is an enormous technological development in the areas of communication;

• the world is becoming a small village and we need to adapt to new and different cultures, customs and beliefs;

• the form and quantity of our networks and social relationships are changing;• there are new rules and regulations;• trends, media-hypes, etc are constantly changing;• there are transitions to new generations and changes. In the past, the

marketing business would speak of 40 years as being the average length of one generation; now we talk of five to seven years.

Today, ‘change’ is the norm. We need to learn to deal with the varying speed of these changes. We sometimes try desperately to hold on to the illusion of stability. To survive in a world where much of what we know is in motion, we need to take full responsibility, both physically and spiritually.

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Equal and loving relationships

WorkCharityLeisureHobby.........all serve these relationships

THE RIGHT BALANCETHE RIGHT BALANCE?

We have to look after ourselves, because no-one else will do that in a climate where everybody is learning to deal with change. (John Whitmore in Coaching for Performance)

Bill Gates, founder and former director of Microsoft, was asked in 1996 in an interview what his biggest fear was. His answer was this:

I am only scared of one thing and that is that my enterprise becomes too slow. We cannot allow ourselves to stand still for half a year, to develop too slowly, because that can determine whether or not we survive.

LIVING AN INTEGRATED LIFE

Share examples of struggles that you have faced in balancing your life.

Most people feel there are too many demands in their life. They feel like a juggler keeping all the balls in the air and sometimes you missed one and it falls to the ground. The picture below gives you an impression.

There are three things wrong with the first picture and your assumptions. 1. You are in the middle 2. Everything you spend on one of your tasks or people costs time. You think in

time, instead of quality3. You compartmentalize and not live an integrated life

Let me try to explain this:5

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Many people experience this. To cope with it, they try to prioritize, but I think this is a false approach. Prioritizing starts with making compartments of your life and work and then you try to make a schedule of how much time you are going to spend to each compartment, but it never really satisfies. Spending time with one thing means not spending time with something else.

ME

convictions

familysports

works

hobby

politicsfriends

charity

personal developement

sick mother

God

Family Work Church Neighbour Yourself

THE RIGHT BALANCE?

God

NeighbourHousehold& Familie

Me

RELATIONSHIPS AS GOAL AND LIMITATIONSThe most important things in life are relationships. The relationship with God, your family and others and with yourself. The nature of these relationships (God, friends/neighbours/others and yourself) determine your possibility to function well at work and wherever else. In these relationships you will also find the goal of life. They make that your life counts. In relation with others, we know we are living. If relationships are our goal, than they are also our limitations. If we harm our

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relationships by our actions we missed our goal: to love them, to serve them and to take care for them. The paradigm shift needs to be: I don’t work for myself, my ambitions, longings and self-realisation or glory, but I work to love, serve my family and all the stake-holders involved. I work for the Glory of God.When I adapt this and when this becomes reality in my life, I start to integrate my life in a healthy way. Time spending at work doesn’t compete with time spending in Church or with my family, because my work is serving these goals as well.

For example: When I watch TV with my daughter and we eat chips and drink cola, then this is a godly job, because God would like me to be a good father spending time with my kids. When I work at the office and I realize I am doing this for my family, the customer and God, then this thought will give me fulfilment and meaning, but also limit my time and efforts at work when they start to harm my relationship with God, my family or other stakeholders.

This all is based on Jesus words: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.”

THE CHALLENGE IS TO RESPECT THESE RELATIONSHIPS

• A good personal relationship with yourself includes a healthy amount of self-esteem, relaxation and rest, love, contentment and joy.

• In Isaiah 28:11–13 we find the story in which God blames the leaders for having set the wrong priorities. God invites them to find peace and repose with Him, but they decide to do something different. They expect to find their peace and rest elsewhere, with the consequence that they stumble and are injured by life itself.

[T]his people to whom He said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”; and, “This is the place of repose”—but they would not listen. So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there—so that as they go they will fall backward; they will be injured and snared and captured.

• It is important to respect and uphold the rhythm and rest periods given to us by God:

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Day and night Genesis 1:14 – Respect and keep your night’s rest.

Week and day of rest Genesis 2:3 – Six days and then one day of rest.

Appointed festivals See Exodus 23:16 and Leviticus 23 – Festivals should be celebrated out of thankfulness and as a time of rest.

Take sabbaticals or get away for a while now and then (holidays) See Leviticus 25 where it talks about a year of rest.

Moments for reflection or evaluation of the past year See Leviticus 25 where it speaks of the 49th year when there is rest and recuperation.

Everything has a place and a time; dare to take this time. See Ecclesiastes 3.

EXTRA NOTE In practice it is not possible to lead a perfectly balanced life all the time. There are periods in our lives when work requires more of our time than usual (e.g. when nearing a deadline or trying to win an important project). And at other times, the family will require more attention (think of the birth of a baby or when someone close to us is ill or someone has passed away). But what is important is not the oscillation but the trend. Is it well balanced, even if momentarily out of line?

And remember that: • Work is a God-given task and we give honour to God by performing our work

well. • Work contributes to your family’s happiness. You are after all earning an

income, building up your savings and finding fulfilment, which in turn helps you to function better within your family.

• God does not want you to read the Bible or sit in silent contemplation the whole day.

• The amount of time you spend does not necessarily say anything about priority.

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EXERCISE 5.11. Use the graph below to make an estimation of the amount of time you have spent on work, family

and other relationships, God, church, relaxation and study over the past year.

2. Is there a balance in your life?

3. What do you do to make sure that it stays balanced?

Share your answers in your small group after this introduction.

Example

% of your time:

- 1 year ago - 9 months ago - 6 months ago - 3 months ago - today

50 %

40 %

30 %

20 %

10 %

0 %

% of your time:

- 1 year ago - 9 months ago - 6 months ago - 3 months ago today

% of your time: Work

Family/RelationshipasGod ChurchRelaxationStudy

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THE INTERACTIVE INTRODUCTION – PART 2

MANAGING YOUR TIME AND PRIORITIES (CALLING)

Share from your own life and how you have dealt with these issues.

MANAGING YOUR CALLING Because time is a fact that we cannot alter, we need to learn to manage our priorities so that we spend our time well. We easily lose ourselves and waste time doing a multitude of different things. The world has become very small and there are many distractions.

This shows that it is important to hold on to the focus in your life.

• Focus on those things that you are good at and do not spend your time doing other things.

• Your calling will be in line with your capacities. God has not called you to do something that you are not suited to.

• Make choices and know your own limits.

We find it difficult to stay focused, because we feel guilty if we do not answer to the appeals that society makes on our lives. These appeals are not necessarily actively made by others, but can be something we feel in our interaction with others or in response to distressing situations. How do we deal with this?

• The Bible uses the body as a metaphor to describe the community of people. Each part of the body has its own role. A kidney is made to function as a kidney, and not as a lung. So if we feel an appeal is being made on us that is not in line with our calling, we should not try to solve the issue ourselves, but should take the issue to someone who can help, someone who was called and made by God to work in this particular field. By leaving a task to someone else, we allow the community to be involved with and take responsibility for one another, without having to take the burdens of the whole world onto our own shoulders.

• When we rightly feel guilty, we need to realise that we are humans with limitations and shortcomings. Know then that Jesus also died for this guilt. If the forgiveness of sins was the only redemption, this would still not be sufficient, because this does not change or solve the situation. The cross (forgiveness) without the resurrection is only half the gospel. The restoration given through the resurrection can also take shape in the daily practice

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of our lives. God wants an active part in our lives through the Holy Spirit. His strength is aimed at healing and complementing our shortcomings. Sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly through the community. And after His return, this healing will be perfected and complete.

TIME IS OUR SERVANTTime in itself is constant; we cannot influence it. We shall never have more time. We live in the here and now and have always had all the time there is. We need to learn to accept God’s authority in how we organise our time as well. It is important here to recognise the forces that distract us from fulfilling God’s purpose within the available timeframe. Remember that when it comes to timing, God knows the greater picture.

In John 11:1–16 Jesus waits until two days after He hears of Lazarus’s illness before He visits him, even though this means that Lazarus dies. Jesus knew that raising Lazarus from the dead would be to God’s glory.

So it is important that we ask ourselves which of our activities are to the glory of God. Knowing that the blessings and fruits that we receive in our work do not come from our own efforts alone helps us to stop and to reflect on our efforts.

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for He grants sleep to those He loves. (Psalm 127:1–2)

When we run out of time, we should ask which idol is responsible for this. What is it that is slurping up so much of our time? Is it: • our lack of discipline; • our work used as an excuse to stay away from our homes; • our work as a means of escaping…; • because our bosses speak so highly of us when we work too much and too

hard;• because of other idols: work as status, work as security, esteem, etc.

PRACTICAL TIPS TO USE OUR TIME EFFICIENTLY AND ENSURE A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE

URGENT OR IMPORTANT? Not everything that makes an appeal on our time is important: Some issues may be urgent because we have put them off for too long, or because other people consider them important.

REFLECTION ON LIFEIt is good to take the time once a year to evaluate the past 12 months and to determine whether the proportion of time you spend on your work, family, relationships, and leisure is balanced enough. Ask your partner or a good friend to help you. He or she will often have a better idea of how you are really doing in life. The outcome of this evaluation will most probably be that your life is not in balance, and you will need to adjust your direction.

Some people will go on a retreat to a monastery, for example, to listen in silence to God’s voice and to discover what God wants with their lives. Retreat twice a year to a quiet setting. Fast and pray while you contemplate these big questions. Take a few days out on your own.

Celebrate, reflect, look back on the turning points in your life (e.g. marriage, birth of your child, your 30th or 40th birthday, death of a partner, a parent’s illness, change of career or job, etc). These reflections have no set time.

Question to reflect on: • How did I get here? • Why is this happening to me? • What does this mean for the future? • How do I give this a place in my life?

YOUR SCHEDULE Plan time for reflection and for looking ahead into your schedule for the coming year, and include a re-evaluation of your chosen lifestyle and priorities. Make sure that your schedule is flexible; reserve time for unexpected events. To make sure that your resolutions become more than just good intentions, it is good to

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FIGURE 5.3

IMPORTANT

NOT IMPORTANT

Priorities

Traps

NOT URGENT URGENT

The above outline shows how we should deal with the traps of urgency. MORE ON THE ABOVE OUTLINE We are often trapped into doing things that are urgent, without asking ourselves whether they are actually important, when we should be working on other important issues that are not urgent – yet. This way we avoid things becoming urgent and, in turn, spending our time constantly catching up and working on urgent jobs, constantly ‘fighting fires’.

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have a set time each year, between Christmas and the New Year, or during your holiday period, for instance. • Is your diary a means of organising your life or does it rule your life? • Look back over your schedule: Does your schedule reflect your life’s

priorities? • Keep room in your schedule for the unexpected and for changes in your pace

of life. • Plan free time for your family, leisure and God. • Make sure that your partner does not take priority over everything else in

your schedule, but do remain driven by love and commitment.

LIVE A HOLY RHYTHM (Partly inspired by Wil Derkse’s book “Levensregel voor beginners” [Life rules for beginners])

• Begin on time. • Appeal and response. Start the moment an appeal is made to you or when

you have planned to start a certain job. Too much time is wasted on things that have nothing to do with the tasks at hand. We often fiddle around a bit before we actually start things.

• Do the right things at the right time. Look at your daily rhythm and try to do the most important things when you are most fit. In the morning, you are probably fitter than after lunch, for example.

• Stop on time; have breaks. Make sure that you have regular relaxation and work times. Do not keep working just to finish something, but dare to stop on time and return to what you are working on after you have rested. This way you will be refreshed and much more efficient.

• Focus on the work itself, and not on just getting it done. This gives more peace and increases the quality, and is often more efficient.

• Be open and friendly. This benefits your spirit and those around you. • Bless your thoughts, your words and your work. Be positive and

encouraging; this approach gives you energy and blessings. • Take the different seasons of life into account. Age, periods of hardship, etc.

As an employer, it is also important to bear in mind these different seasons of life. This is becoming more and more important, because we are probably going to have to work longer and the human body has its limitations. And so it is important:

• to map out the different tasks and jobs with an indication of the physical and mental strain each involves;

• come up with a flexible reward system that is based on this overview;• discuss the consequences of this with your employees and create room

and a sense of responsibility so that income and expenses can be attuned by means of saving plans and pensions.

OTHER TIPS • Reserve time in the day for your work and avoid distractions (limit the time

you spend on emails and phone calls). • Agree on a code with your partner/children and then be available. • Identify the idols that keep you from your purpose. • Text or call your children/partner once a day. • Have a group of friends who care and pray for you.

NEW WAYS OF WORKING Another way of lightening your work load is by looking for a new job, one that brings you less stress. There is an increasing number of people who work from home, who have flexi-hours, share jobs or who do portfolio work (where one person takes on several different jobs or roles). These changes in themselves do not guarantee a more balanced life. Only Christ can bring this about by working in you and through you, by changing you on the inside.

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SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION 5.2• Discuss the topic further. • Share from your own life and what has touched you. • Use the questions to guide you.

1. Share your answers to exercise 5.1.

2. How do you deal with changes in your life and changes in society?

3. Taking responsibility for your own life: Do you see this as threat or an opportunity?

4. Are you aware of your calling? Does this help you to stay focused?

5. Which practical tips help you to balance your life? Which tips do not help or do you struggle with?

6. You can also continue with action plan 5.3 and discuss b and c together.

• Fill in the prayer card and pray through these prayer points over the coming period.

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CONCLUSION

Thank everyone and wish everyone a safe journey home.

ACTION PLAN 5.3 1. Plan a day or two in your schedule to review and evaluate the past year. Decide where to do this.

A quite place without a mobile can be helpful. Silence and monastery weekend retreats are ideal. - What do you need to reflect and evaluate? - Do you know what you spend your time on? - It may help to use a system to keep track of the time you spend on your different tasks. - It may also help to make a list of things that are important to you. You are often unconsciously aware of these issues, but they do often become clearer once you put them down in writing.

2. If you have a partner: How are you going to involve your partner in this process? Do you take this time to evaluate and reflect together, or should you each do this separately and then discuss it together afterwards?

If you do not have a partner: Should you involve a good friend with whom you would like to share this process? How should you involve him or her?

3. How do you make sure that this time of reflection results in more than just good resolutions?

NOTES

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NOTESNOTES

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