Are you living in the "Storm of the Norm"?

Our lives are busy. We are a “busy” society. We live in a society that applauds the busy lifestyle. Because if you’re life isn’t full of activity then your are not living, you are missing out, and quite frankly, you’re boring. You lead a boring life if it isn’t full of activity. It actually doesnt matter what the activities are, you just need to be busy. Therefore it has become the norm. We’ve been conditioned that it is the norm. This is just how it is. It’s a busy life. So get used to it buddy, put your ‘big boy’ pants on and get with the program.

So that’s how we live. This is the life we live. A busy life.

(let's see if you can read down to the dotted line at an increased speed for effect)

Get up in the morning, when does your alarm go off… 5am, 6am? Get yourself prepared for the day.

Do you exercise early in the morning, well get going. If you do or maybe not, then start getting ready for the day ahead. Shower, get dressed, brush your teeth (I hope) - do you have enough time to eat breakfast or do you grab something out of the pantry to eat along the morning commute, or do you stop somewhere to grab some coffee and something to eat along the commute? 

Oh wait… are you a parent? Do you need to wake the kids in the morning, get them up and prepared for their day. There’s quite a bit involved in that morning routine huh? 

Ofcourse all your children jump out of bed are so excited to get ready for their school day so there’s no stress involved with that, right?

Now you’re at work. Phone calls, emails, customers, your boss, meetings. Oh the meetings are so fun and productive. Now you’re a little behind, try to catch up, more phone calls, customers, what another meeting… really….. You drudge through the day...

You don’t seem to catch up but you know you’ll be back tomorrow. But you need to head home. Maybe stop to pick up a child or 2 from daycare or after school care. 

Cmon kids weve gotta get home, start dinner or call for pizza. Take care of the needs within the home. Maybe some cleaning, some laundry, maybe do some homework w/ the kids, help them study for a test. 

Oh we’ve gotta get lil Johnny to baseball practice. Drive him there, drop him off, stay there for practice or leave & come back 45min. later to pick him up and drive home.

  Pizza here, or get the dinner ready, lets eat. After dinner is clean up. Does everybody get in on the clean up or are you doing it alone? Now what. You try to get a few minutes of peace from your rushed day. You go sit on the couch or maybe lay in bed, just for a few minutes to veg out… but if you have children the minutes may be a little less. 

Like this video........

You look at he clock, Oh my, its bedtime. Get the kids ready for bed. And they are totally down with that. They love going to bed to night. No stress there. So everything that’s involved with getting everybody to bed. 

Now you get to get ready to go to bed. You finally lay down at what??? 9pm, 10pm? Later? Possibly watch the late news or some show you DVR’d….

You make sure the alarm is set before you doze off so you can do it all again tomorrow.

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It’s the norm. 

We didn’t discuss the weekends full of activity, kids games or practices or dance recitals nor any after school extra-curricular activities 

“Studies show that 79% of America's middle and high school students regularly participate in activities both after school and on weekends and 57% have some kind of non-school activity nearly every day.”

Last weekend, Get this, Cathleen and I triple booked our weekend…. It was partly foolishness on our part for not seeing it coming, it was partially due to the busy, busy lifestyles we live.

Allison is involved in club VB, their biggest tournament was last weekend in dallas, so Cathleen knew that months ago that it was last weekend (thur-sun in Dallas) we also promoted and led our growth group, “Cleansing Stream” - the highlight of that group study culminates with a weekend retreat… that retreat was last weekend in Ft. Worth. So while Cathleen & the girls were in Dallas Thursday, I traveled to Ft. Worth Fri, along with the rest of our group. She drove over to FW fri night to the hotel we were staying in & Jess drove back to Dallas that night to be with Allison and do the tourn w/ her Sat, while Cathleen and I were involved in the big CS retreat all day Sat.

After the CS event Sat. Night we met Jess n Alli for dinner in Dallas where Cathleen went back to their Dallas hotel for Sun games of tourn and I drove home Sat. Night to be here Sun morn for our guest speaker last sun Bess Blanco. Originally we planned on spending a portion of Sat. Together w/ Bess and her husband Juan, ofcourse not realizing we were gonna be in Dallas/FW on Sat. It’s crazy...

Listen folks, it’s tough right? It’s over-whelming, it fills our lives with stress, anxiety and we feel the heaviness, the weight of our schedules. That hear me now, can bring us to tears sometimes, can push us to the brink of throwing up our hands and screaming I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!

And it can, if it hasnt already, bring tension in the family and our lives personally.

So Here’s a question. Can you make any changes to your schedule that would make your life not as busy as it currently is? Most people (a very high %) would say NO they don’t see how they could.

There’s a very small % who’d say they’ve made some minor and fewer that would say major changes to slow the pace of life down.

So that being the case, I’m not gonna tell you that you should change your schedule. 

My schedule, my families schedule is very similar to that and yours. 

I would encourage you to do an evaluation of your schedule just for the sake of your family health, your own health and for that matter sanity. 

What I am going to talk about is that God’s Word tells us that’s how our lives would be and actually says that we’d choose to live this way. Plus it tells us how to find peace, how to find serenity within the storm. The storm of the norm. Because that’s where we are… we are living in the storm of the norm. 

So let's just look at God’s Word. Two passages in particular that have had a big influence in my life personally and we’re just going to read those and allow God through His Holy Spirit to reveal to each of us individually what  His Word is saying to us.

Along the way I’ll point out some facts, and some similarities to our lives and you can certainly jot down some notes - but more so… let’s all be aware of what God is saying to you personally.

Will you do that with me?

1^st passage - Isaiah 30 -  Beginning in vs. 15…

Are you ready? Listen to the Lord….

15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, - this word salvation, the hebrew meaning is to be delivered, to be liberated, to give victory. OK, so what is the Lord saying to us regarding our busy lifestyles?

In repentance and rest you’ll be liberated, you’ll find what? victory! Victory from the burdens, the weight of the busy lifestyle… how do we become liberated and find victory? ……

V.15 continues..    in quietness and trust is your strength, Stop. How do we find strength?…..

So repentance, rest, quietness, and trust (that’s a big word trust) we are liberated with victory and strength.

OK so what does the Lord say about our lifestyles and schedules? v 15 continues...
    but you would have none of it. Wow! So basically God knows how we’re livin’ 

He even gives us details  v.16 

You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
    Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
    Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

17 

A thousand will flee
    at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
    you will all flee away,
till you are left
    like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
    like a banner on a hill.”

What is God’s Word telling us here? You don’t ever slow down… you just go go go. There’s no stop and we just keep adding and adding to our schedules and lives more and more and more and now here we are…. Feeling alone, over-whelmed, exhausted.

So the book of Isaiah was written aprox 2700 yrs ago yet God knew the busyness of our lives even then, well he knew it before then but it shows us how relevant scripture is to our lives today.

So God continues to speak to us v. 18 

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
    Blessed are all who wait for him!

Wait a minute, in God’s great compassion towards us He says that those who wait upon Him are what? … blessed, happy. 

v.19 People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Do you want this blessed life? He hears us when we call on Him, He will answer. 20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. That’s Holy Spirit revelation folks. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 22 Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

That’s some harsh language to get His point across…. Those idols overlaid w/ gold and silver for us have a few meanings but w/in the context we’re talking about today it’s all about our busy lifestyles… that we worship. How? We give everything we’ve got to keeping our busy lifestyles afloat. It takes all that we have, all our energy and theyve become idols. It’s crazy folks but we’ve gotta call like it is in order to find freedom, to be delivered, liberated - to find victory in the Lord.

We must make time, find time… actually prioritizing our time to be with the Lord. Everyday. Not just Sunday. Everyday. 

How? Remember, we’ve already read it… in repentance, (I’m sorry Lord, I need You) rest, quietness, and trust. (we stop, everyday to sit before the Lord. It’s a good time to have scripture in front of you, but maybe you don’t everyday. The key is to stop in quietness and trust the Lord will allow you to complete the day. There you will be what? Liberated and strengthened.)

Look at this folks, please get this today… otherwise…. When we don’t do that, our schedules, our busy lives become our god, our idol. That’s what we bow down to day in and day out....... That's living in the Storm of the Norm.

But God wants to show compassion, He wants you to be liberated. 

Will you STOP?

"We are living in the "Storm of the Norm" video: https://www.sermonconnect.com/mediapreview.php?id=201304211004192E57B3