I Felt a Tug at My Left Hip...

           So as I referred to in an earlier post, my wife and I had the extreme pleasure of attending the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago, a few weeks ago. My wife and I came to the conference expecting a LOT, but not knowing WHAT to expect. We definitely looked forward to some time off, and away from home, and with no children. And we got that for sure, but this is a side note.

           As the weekend moved along at a rapid pace, on Sunday night my wife gave in to her exhaustion and headed to bed “early”, truth is it was about 10:30 at night after a day of classes and session that had started at 9:00 that morning. As I left the hotel room to watch the live taping of the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast, I felt a tug at my left hip. Now some would right away think that this is some sort of metaphor or clever illustration for God tugging at a certain part of my life, and the short answer to that is, no. At my day job I work as an “Audio/Visual Specialist” (I’m the nerdy kid with a TV/VCR combo on a cart.), a job that requires me to have access to many rooms on a local university campus, but does not come with the clout to carry just a few master keys, so instead each day I wield a very LARGE amount of keys, I’m talking, creepy janitor amounts of keys, like, throw your back out of alignment amounts of keys! And I wear them on a keychain that buckles to my belt, which I place on my left hip.

            So this tug that I felt had more to do with muscle memory, and the fact that I wear these several pounds of jangling metal on my hip more than 40 hours of each week, than a divine beaconing. This involuntary, “phantom” tug, was a cold reminder of the reality that waited for me upon my arrival home. Still I was rather pleased with myself that it had taken from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday evening to even give a thought to my day job, as time consuming as it can be. But when I felt it, my mind immediately scurried off to the projects and duties that would be waiting for me, and the no doubt countless emails and unanswered phone calls I would have to return Tuesday morning upon my return.

        
           The heart of the issue I was facing was my ability or inability to compartmentalize the different areas of my life. And this is where the conundrum ensues. See, God wants all of our lives, I don’t want to box Him up during my day job, (in fact I’m writing this post at my day job!) nor do we want to box up our family or ministry, nor do we want the ministry to choke out our family life. But the day job is for sure something we want to place on a shelf when we are not there! Yes, you really do! There is nothing worse than giving a message, or talking to a student about some heavy stuff in their life, and thinking, “I need to email Bill, and get that info for the project I’m working on.”  So how do we juggle all of this!? Here are a handful of tips that I think have made the high wire act of balancing, family, ministry, and work a little less tedious in my life.

·      Cut the ties – I rock a Motorola Droid smartphone. It has been by far the best phone I’ve owned, it certainly has every capability to blow up every time someone sends an email to my work email address. But I don’t let it! Chances are if the world is on fire your boss has your phone number, let your employer know that IF the world is on fire, you can be called! If not, you’ll be in for your next day’s work.

·      Move out of town! – Ok not really. Students LOVE to spend time with youth leaders, pastors, etc. But boundaries need to be set early and often, if you find that they’re dropping by way too much it’s ok to have a conversation with them about it. I don’t personally have any issues with this because we do live 2 towns away from most of our students so they have to go WAY out of their way to drop by. But they DO text a lot, which brings me to…

·      Guard your family time/don’t text at the table! – If you have the luxury of eating dinner with your family at the table protect it! Don’t grab your phone every time it blows up (you already know it’s not your boss!), a lot of students want a super fast reply, but will totally get over it if you’re a little slow in responding. This is something I’ve learned thanks to my wife’s persistence. If  you don’t have the luxury of eating dinner with your family START DOING IT! It won’t be every night for you, but at least get a couple nights a week in, it’s incredibly important!

What have you done to make the balancing act a little easier?

Blessings,

Jeremiah