Laboring to Enter into Rest: The Upward Call
Leisure, Work and the House of Prayer
We’ve concluded that many intercessory missionaries (working six days a week) have 290 work days a year – but we still have to break down how much work is actually being done in those 290 days.
Once we subtract sleep; the number of available working hours a year numbers about 4640. All of our daily toil and humdrum happens in these precious hours. A successful life in God is won or lost based on the choices we make in this time.
The basic intercessory missionary commits to a 50 hour work week – which includes prayer time as well as ministry and any partnership development. Let us assume that a missionary is very committed to their partnership development, and add an extra 3 hours a week of service in this area. This is the bulk of the regular work – and when we subtract this we are left with almost 2080 hours a year. That is about six hours a day.
Now some of that six hours will certainly be spent working, doing necessary household chores, mowing the lawn, washing the dog, etc. Those with a family will spend a portion of it serving their spouse, serving your children, etc.
Even if we assume that the average person is doing 3-4 hours daily on household tasks or serving their household in some way (a far higher average than most Americans), this still leaves 2-3 hours daily that is essentially unscheduled ‘leisure’ time.
Americans spend that three hours each day watching television.
The bottom line: An intercessory missionary who works six days a week, doing 53-55 hours of ministry a week spends almost 57% of their time either sleeping or in leisure or unscheduled personal time.
We can conclude that those who have chosen to serve as intercessory missionaries should perhaps give pause if we are tempted to boast of our personal sacrifice. God has profound affection for those who labor in the house of prayer, but few can claim to have attained the heroic virtue of those saints we esteem in history or the Scriptures.
As we grow in maturity, wisdom and grace let us give heed to the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians:
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ … I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me…but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
your point is not easy to glean here. to be like the super saints of old, we should schedule no time for leisure or rest or sleep..?
James:
I state my point clearly – I’ll restate it here for you: “those who have chosen to serve as intercessory missionaries should perhaps give pause if we are tempted to boast of our personal sacrifice.”
The point = doing what we do as intercessory missionaries does not constitute what I call ‘heroic virtue’ such as is displayed in the lives of the apostles, prophets and heroes of the faith. We should always be reaching to attain that level of holiness and commitment.