Is leisure time important? Definitely. God gives it a high priority, and so should we. Hard work is a virtue, but only when it is balanced by leisure. Planning Play Just being willing to make leisure time a priority is more than half the battle and the rest is just a matter of planning and discipline. If you are married, by all means seek the counsel of your spouse. If you have children, get their input. It’s not only will you discover some unmet needs of theirs that are related to your leisure time, but you will likely get some insight into your own unmet needs. It’s said that make a list of all the things you would like to do, or think you might like to do in your leisure time and assume you have as much free time as you could possibly fill and then fantasize. Setting Aside Time Do you know how to anticipate a date with your wife? Can you anticipate a fishing trip? Not without planning. If you have a family, find out when you might spend some time with each member during the week. You might set aside Tuesday and Thursday evenings for time with the kids. They could decide how to spend it each week. Friday or Saturday night might be a good time to go out with your spouse. Husbands, this is a great way to strengthen your marriage, even if you do not go anywhere and if your wife knows it is her night, she will likely be a different person. Now if all this time with family does not sound like leisure time, then maybe it will not be for you. But it may very well be God’s plan for leisure time for your family and they may need you in order to enjoy their leisure time. You may need to plan your own leisure time, away from the family whether it is an evening out weekly, or a fishing trip a couple of times a year, you need to plan to do things that you can anticipate and need to be able to look forward to things that will take the pressure off. Develop a long-range plan to do the things you want to do to plan trips and vacations for enough ahead of time that you can accumulate the money in advance. Pay all cash and see how much more fun it is to spend what you have saved than to worry about how you will pay for your fun after the fact. Do the things that you know God wants you to do, or that are consistent with his will and avoid doing those things that you know or suspect are not consistent with his will. Do not overly spiritualize your approach to planning leisure time, certainly everything we do needs to be glorifying to God, but our leisure activities can also be lots of fun, too. Actually wonder at times whether I have gotten lazy or still work a lot, and still love the job, but I have learned to enjoy things outside of my job because there is much more variety to my life than there used to be. It’s quiet impressing to see the old people getting together with their grandchildren showing happiness in the leisure time.Ends
