Raewyn and I generally work way too hard and often neglect looking after ourselves.  It is easy to lose sight of this until you actually do something to look after yourself.

We finally managed to get a few days to do nothing except rest, seek God and rest some more.

I am fully convinced that the way we live in the West is not good for us.  Within 2 days of arriving at our rest stop we are feeling “human” again and starting to think straight, relax and focus on what is really important for us.

Why do we have to go away and isolate ourselves to achieve this? Shouldn’t this be how we live all the time?

The answer of course is yes, this is how we should live.  But we find it difficult if not impossible to not fill our lives up with stuff in our normal environment..

Think about a typical week for you. How many evenings are you free to do nothing if you wanted? Most people I know “try” and have 1 or 2 nights a week when they don’t have regular commitments.  This is just so wrong.  We should have 1 or 2 nights maximum when we have commitments, not the other way round.

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people speaking at events or conferences saying how many days a year they travel or how long since they’ve been home.  People applaud at their sacrifice for some reason. I cry inside thinking how tragic for that person AND more importantly their friends and family.  They will look back on their life with much regret because they are living a life out of order.

We are created to work hard and rest hard.  We are designed to be busy sometimes but to have incredibly intimate deep relationships also. That level of relationship only comes through much time spent together, relaxing, laughing, debating and loving each other.

No matter what is going on in your life you MUST look after yourself to be of any use to yourself, your family or God.

I have developed a relationship recently with a pastor in Myanmar thanks to Facebook and recently I sent Him a prophetic word about spending time in God’s presence as a necessary doorway to see God’s power move amongst his flock.

His response was to than me as he had been “so busy serving God he had little time to spend with God”.

So this is not just a western problem.  And it could just as easily been his wife instead of God, the sadness and damage is the same.

So today get out your diary and start to categorise the things you do that destroy your ability to be who you want to be.

Be honest, list everything you do that you don’t like and that frustrate you……

AND STOP DOING THEM

Then list the things you wish were true in your life.  Look at your relationships.  I had a failed marriage because I didn’t know how to have a good one. I didn’t understand the work required and the skills I needed.

So when God gave me a second chance with the greatest woman in the universe do you think I am blasé about that?  Do you think I work hard to have a great marriage?

For me it took failure to understand the need to change to succeed.  I hope to spare you the failure by exhorting you to do whatever it takes to remove the cr*p that fills your day and start to get breathing space that you can fill with life, fill with enjoying your kids, fill with writing that book, fill with getting the training to pursue the career you want, fill with learning to sail/ski/race cars/fill with things that fill YOU up and bring life to those around you.

Today is a good day to start looking after yourself better, why wait?

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv

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