sabbath rest

The To Don’t List

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Our lives are built around “to do lists.” Like most people I keep ongoing and always growing to do lists. There is my work to do list, my home to do list, my call/write to do list, my reading to do list, my prayer to do list, my bucket to do list, and on and on the to do lists grow. These to do lists guide and inform my life of the ways in which I should and/or want to spend my time. But my recent study for a sermon I gave on the subject of the Sabbath, entitled “Faith to Rest” has sensitized me to the equal if not more important idea of keeping a “to don’t list.”

We live in a culture where “to don’t lists” are lost in the flood of to do lists. Our modern world is driven by a busyness that is a by product of the high value we place on accomplishment and accumulation. Consequently the idea of taking time to stop or cease things is anathema to our drive to keep the graphs of life moving up and to the right.

The Bible however confirms our real-life experience that the graph does move down as frequently and readily as it moves up. The passage of Ecclesiastes popularized by The Byrds’ song “Turn, Turn, Turn” in the mid 1960’s says it plainly and painfully. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) It might be summed up like this. There is a time to continue and a time to stop, a time to do and a time to don’t!

The word for Sabbath, derives from the Hebrew word shavat which is frequently translated rest, but more accurately means to cease or to stop (work/doing). The idea of the weekly observance of a Sabbath is a good place to begin when thinking about a “to don’t list.” Although there may be many bad or sinful things that should naturally go right to the top of our “to don’t lists,” the things we often overlook are the good things. Sabbaths were created by God as seasons to suspend even the productive and beneficial things in our lives for the higher purpose of renewed consecration to Him.

A proper “to don’t list” then should include bad things, good things that are simply not the best things and even the best things that need a rest.

Here is a list of clarifying questions that I am finding helpful in determining what things need to be priorities in creating a “to don’t list.”

1. What things in my life am I doing that I need

7 time management principles from the wisest man who ever lived

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“There is a time for everything.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

That is quite a statement. Why is it sometimes that does not appear to be true? Too often it seems like there are just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything we feel we should do. Solomon, considered to be the wisest man who ever lived, penned those words. As the most productive king in Israel’s history he obviously knew something about time management.

Time management experts tell us that time management at its core is really life management. That is an important distinction and makes sense when we consider that Solomon’s book of Ecclesiastes is essentially a book about life management. Wasted time produces wasted lives. And as the Solomon, continually reminds us, wasting time in meaningless pursuits produces meaningless lives. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (1:2)

Since this extremely wise and accomplished man knew both the profit and pitfalls of life management we would do well to glean as many nuggets of truth as we can from his writings. A careful study of his book reveals what I would consider to be seven of the greatest time management principles ever written. Here they are.

3 lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life

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“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Some lessons I wish I had learned earlier in life. It’s been said that experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately that is not necessarily the case. Actually the best teacher is evaluated experience. Only those who seek to learn from bad experiences are destined not to repeat them. Evaluated experience leads to wisdom. And there is no better source of wisdom than perspective that comes from God inspired evaluation.

That is what this short prayer from Psalm 90 is all about. It is a prayer that I now pray frequently and have adopted as one of my life verses. It is noteworthy that Moses is the author of this Psalm. There is probably no one better qualified than him to pray so authoritatively for wisdom. After spending forty years exile in the wilderness evaluating his deadly misjudgments in Egypt he knew what it meant to number his days aright. And the heart of wisdom God imparted to him during that time positioned him at age eighty to begin a forty year run as one of the greatest leaders of all time.

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