I gathered up my courage and braved rush hour traffic in the city to attend a workshop a few days ago.  Holding up her smartphone, my instructor said bluntly, “This is a Dream Killer.”  She had been exhorting us to work hard and be disciplined in our pursuit of excellence.  Reminding us that we have only so many hours to devote to our own improvement, we must guard our time and invest it wisely.  Being on social media or surfing the web steals precious time away from our goals.  Ouch.  I had become painfully aware of the time suck Facebook had become to me.  My black hole was reading FB professional pages dedicated to helping entrepreneurs promote and sustain their businesses.  Not that these instructional sites were worthless.  It’s simply that I was reading indiscriminately all the info offered- even info that doesn’t pertain to my particular current business needs.  I was just satisfying my morbid curiosity about other people’s businesses instead of astutely filtering only what is actually pertinent to my business.  Learning is great, but learning for learning’s sake doesn’t get me closer to my goals.  

So is my advice to keep your nose to the grindstone so you can succeed?  Yes and No!  I’m pretty good at working, but not as good at having fun.  And that is one of my biggest regrets as a parent.  Husband and I have been talking about this since our pastor gave a whole sermon last week on taking time to have fun together as a married couple and as families.  That was our missing ingredient when we were raising a young family.  There was so much to do.  Husband carried the responsibility of overseeing the repair and maintenance of airplanes operating in the jungle under the harshest of conditions.  One mess-up and lives would be lost.  His work often spilled over into the few remaining hours of his free time.  I was trying to keep our household running smoothly even when it seemed like all the forces of nature were arrayed against us. Jungle heat and humidity, ants, cockroaches, snakes, floods, droughts which meant not enough water for our household,  only a few hours of electricity a day, and isolation.  It seemed that all we had time for was homeschooling, mission duties, and chores.  The one thing we always did was stop each evening and read stories aloud before bed.  In later years after returning to the States, Husband ran his own business and pastored.  I was engaged in a home business and helped at church.  We rarely had time for getting out of the rat race and having fun.  I can remember seeing neighbors drive by obviously going for a fun outing with camping gear and canoes.  I stood there thinking, “I guess we’ll never have time for that.  We have a big yard to keep up and responsibilities to fulfill.  Oh well, camping is so much work to prepare for anyway.”  And the one time we attempted a camping trip as a family, I was so worn out from trying to do my regular jobs of mothering six and also preparing for the trip that I promptly put my back out the first day in the mountains.

We weren’t so good at having family fun.  Husband and I are driven, goal oriented, and couldn’t find it in our Scrooge hearts to spend money on fun.  The times we did throw parties for friends and neighbors are high points in our memories.  How I wish we would have listened better to those who were good at having fun.  Husband’s father had set a good example.  My father when he was present also valued recreation and family parties.  But alas, it had been lost on us.  Hard work was our top value right below faith.  But we had made even our faith about work.  Laziness was a cuss word, and ourselves and others were measured against this standard.  How much we had accomplished in the day was the measure of whether it had been a good day or not.  We were missing out on so much while thinking we were doing the right thing.  As we got older and wiser and carried fewer responsibilities, we stepped up our party game.  We often reminisce about putting the extensions in our table and sharing a meal and laughter with our dear international student friends when we lived near a university.  

If we would have paid attention, we would have noticed that God has a different perspective on the work/life balance than we did.  He actually commanded partying!  His plan for his people, the nation of Israel, was that they gathered for feasts, (for many this meant travel), and celebrations which included worship, worship music, eating and drinking together with family and friends, and a break from daily work.  I always had the idea that the sacrifices that were required of God’s people were burned up on the altar and given to the temple workers and teachers.  But actually, the bigger portion was for the donating family to eat together with thankfulness to God.  So God’s idea of refreshment, community, fun, worship, and parties was different than our modern idea of self-centered relaxing.  His idea was about community and family- the fun happened with others.  The money was saved and spent on getting together and eating.  With that comes talking in a relaxed atmosphere, time for children to know and enjoy relatives, removing oneself from the daily grind, and feeling part of a bigger community of like-minded people with whom you worshiped.

“They played and sang loudly under the direction of the choir director. Many sacrifices were offered on that joyous day, for God had given the people cause for great joy. The women and children also participated in the celebration, and the joy of the people of Jerusalem could be heard far away.”  Nehemiah 12:42-43

So perhaps the danger of the internet, social media and entertainment, in general, isn’t only that it steals time from accomplishing goals, but that it steals time from preparing for and enjoying fun family time and group worship.  It attempts to fill our need for community with superficial relationships.  Clicking the Like button and moving on to the next post is cheap and easy.  Saving, planning, and preparing for get-togethers with family or friends, and setting aside time for church weekly takes the sacrifice of money and time.  But it yields deep relationships built on communication, giving, and valuing the precious relationships that refresh and enrich our lives.

“All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. . . They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—  all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”  Acts 2:42,46-47