if you find yourself with 20 minutes of free time, consider yourself blessed! free time is a gift from God and an invitation to a special, holy kind of rest.
time is precious. we can probably all agree that time flies and how often do we wish life had a SLOW DOWN or PAUSE button? this makes me look carefully at how i spend my time, and makes me want to spend the minutes and hours God has given me wisely.
time is precious. we can probably all agree that time flies and how often do we wish life had a SLOW DOWN or PAUSE button? this makes me look carefully at how i spend my time, and makes me want to spend the minutes and hours God has given me wisely.
i believe God ordains our days (psalm 139) and blesses us with pockets of free time that we so often are careless with, unfortunately. we are so conditioned to fill every spare moment with noise: tv, social media, busyness, and distractions.
i wonder if that's why "self care" is such a hot trend right now - because we aren't wise with how we use our free time, we always feel busy, stressed, exhausted, so we feel like we need more self care? i think that if we were already using our time wisely, self care wouldn't be a thing. we'd already feel content, at peace, and rested. why are we so restless when we get a few minutes of unfilled time?
i keep thinking about recess time in elementary school. remember how good it felt to have that free time smack in the middle of the day? we might have greater responsibilities now as adults, but we still have the same 24 hours in a day and if anything, we are more capable of managing our time now. back then, our teachers told us when it was time for recess. now, we are the grownups in charge of how we spend our time. let's re-teach ourselves how to truly enjoy our free time.
what if we made a habit of being intentional with our free time? what if, instead of filling that time with things that don't matter, we do things that were truly satisfying? which might very well be filling that time doing nothing at all! hello, holy rest. if you have a spare 20 minutes in your day, make the most of it!
here are 20 ways to make the most of 20 minutes (or less) of free time
- read an actual book or magazine
- listen to a podcast
- go around the house gathering things to donate
- pray
- learn something new from a YouTube video
- listen to a bible study
- watch a church message on video
- exercise or do yoga
- write out your goals for the next week, month, year
- meet a friend for coffee
- plan your meals for the next week
- organize a closet, a room, or some drawers
- call a close friend or relative
- listen to your favorite songs
- paint your nails
- clean out your purse or car
- go for a walk
- write in a journal "dear diary" style
- write a love letter to your spouse or kids
- do something creative like draw, craft, paint, rearrange furniture, dance!
print this out. screen shot it. reference it when you need to.
where you might have pockets of "free time" in your day: driving, carpool, during kids' naps, first thing in the morning, waiting for the kids to come home from school, lunch break, after the kids go to bed, in a waiting room, waiting for water to boil or food to bake, standing in line, at the laundry mat. my challenge is to log off of social media, turn off the TV, set a timer and do something fulfilling! i think our future selves will thank us.
let's get off of auto-pilot time sucks and start making the most of free time.
“there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God.
For all who have entered into God’s rest
have rested from their labors,
just as God did after creating the world.”
- Hebrews 4:9-10
