Raise your hand if you have ever felt personally victimized by time management. *Every Coptic hand shoots into the air*. Now picture this: it’s 2019, you have classes all week, you have a big assignment due on Friday, and you have a huge exam on Sunday night.
Realistically, lets focus on work this week, and go to church next week. We only get one shot at these assignments and exams, but God will always be at church and our Sunday school kids will be there next week.
How many times have we said that to ourselves? How many times have we prioritized school over our spiritual lives? How many times have we taken God for granted. Now let’s fast forward to present day. The church is not as accessible as it once was. Our sunday school kids are not in church every week like they used to be. Holy Week was canceled or streamed from home; It looks like Kiahk prayers may be streamed as well. Why did we believe that God and His home were accessible at our every whim? Why didn’t we just manage our time so we could spend time with God?
We have learned many lessons throughout this pandemic, but I think one lesson that we learn as a community is that prioritizing school and our spiritual lives is a delicate balance. God is not “a priority”, He is “The Priority”. He is the Being that our personal and communal lives revolve around.
That being said, this delicate balance relies on our ability to resist absolutes. We can’t neglect our duties as students, and we absolutely cannot neglect God. There is a balance that must be met, and each person reaches this balance by gauging their time and being honest about their responsibilities. As Saint Augustine wisely said, “To many, complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation”. It’s easy to neglect school and focus on God, and it’s also easy to neglect God and focus on school. Absolutes are easy, but as Christians with family, friends, and school, moderation is essential.
The book of Ecclesiastes teaches us that everything under the sun has a time and a purpose (Ecclesiastes 3:1). We need to know what our everyday lives should look like and recognize the format of a moderate life. Moderation teaches us that just because we can’t go to every church service, it doesn’t mean we aren’t giving God 100% of our hearts. And just because we may cut our studying short to attend the youth meeting, that doesn’t make us slackers. Time management and planning allows us to visualize where our time is being spent and can help us balance our lives.
Balance is also important in our spiritual lives. When we have the blessing of attending spiritual retreats, we leave feeling like we can take on the world. We sit on the bus ride back from Texas monastery and tell ourselves, “from this day forward, I am officially changing my spiritual cannon (without the blessing of my Father of Confession) to: waking up at 4 am every day, reading an entire Gospel, then attending liturgy, do one hour of quiet time and read an entire spiritual book – and that’s just to start my day. Would that be a beautiful life to live? Yes. Would the pressure of trying to do all of that and also perform well in school and spend time with your family propel you into despair? Probably. We feel stress and guilt when we try to apply the season of harvest to the season of sowing.
Lastly, take it easy on yourself. Balance takes time to learn, and its terms change as we get older and adopt more responsibilities. P.S.- invest in a planner!