Last year Skylight Frames released a report finding parents spend more than 30 hours per week “planning and coordinating family tasks and schedules.” Skylight surveyed over 2,000 parents with children under 18 years old.
The survey shows this staggering volume affects our quality of life. 79% of parents responded that they’ve had anxiety about scheduling family tasks.
The scheduling load has also hurt the health of our marriages. About 60% of parents said the scheduling load decreased time they spend with their partner. 47% of couples said the stress of overscheduling led to less or worse sex. Nearly 25% of couples said they sought therapy to cope with family scheduling.
Busy schedules are the norm, and parents are struggling to keep them. On average, the study said, children participate in 11 weekly activities. We cannot assess the right level of busyness for one another, but the Bible reminds us we are allowed — and encouraged — to prioritize rest in a busy world.
If you’re tired, you can rest. God’s Word shows us that rest is a tool for building up both us and our children.
Psalm 23:1-3 says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
God encourages us to rest, and times of rest allow him to lead us into his plans for us and restore our soul for good works.
In Genesis, God gives us an example of how to implement rest in the way he shaped life and Earth. He tells us that he created in stages. After each stage of creation, we read, “There was evening, and there was morning.” He did not work through the evenings. He modeled a pattern of regular breaks during and after he finished his work of creation, when he set aside a holy day of rest. (Genesis 1:1-31, 2:1-3).
Later, in Mark 2:27, Jesus reminds us that God intended that day of rest for our good. “The Sabbath was made for man.”
Rest is also an opportunity to teach our children their value by not emphasizing doing. The world tells our children they are worth their level of accomplishment and tasks completed, but God’s Word does not.
John 1:12-13 says, “[T]o all who … receive him, who believe[] in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (emphases added).
God assigns great value to our children apart from any ambition, accomplishment or talent. “God created [our children] in his own image” (Genesis 1:27), and they are “fearfully and wonderfully made” by him. (Psalm 139:14).
Rest is a tool for abundant life. If you are struggling under the stress of your schedule, you can take rest. God built rest into his plans for you and your family.
Watch or listen as I walk through this article on my podcast Tired But Called now on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcast.
