Rhythm of Life

So when I was at my three-week missionary training this past fall they talked to us alot about soul care. How can we care for our soul and maintain closeness to God in a fog of adaptation cross-culturally.

Well I came across one thing in my training notebook recently and it really stuck in my mind. I thought I would share it because I think it can apply to all of us.

I even have a visual aid for you.

This is a diagram that they gave us which shows the rhythm of Jesus' life. How He did life basically. You will notice that it is a cycle between three major areas...solitude, community and ministry.

And if you study the life of Jesus I think you will agree and find this to be true. Jesus was often off by himself with the Father resting and renewing. And He certainly spent alot of time in a small community environment with His disciples and alot of time teaching/healing/praying/ministering to the larger community.

I started thinking about this because our goal as Christ followers is to become more like Christ. And although we will never get to that finish line in this life, it is still our motivation.

So in my quest to be more like Christ I have decided that I really want the rhythm of MY life to mirror the rhythm of His life as shown above.

I want my life to be characterized by a constant cycle of solitude, community and ministry. Solitude. Community. Ministry. Solitude. Community. Ministry.

So how am I doing you might ask? Good question.

I graded myself and I give myself about a C in solitude. Average. I could definitely spend more time alone with God but living by myself gives me an advantage in the solitude arena I think. The question is...is my solitude good or bad solitude? I can improve with the quality of my solitude.

For ministry I give myself a B. I can always do more and the list of projects is never ending but I feel like God has really used me in my first 6 months here and I think that He is using this Blog to share testimony with folks back home more than I could have ever dreamed.

For community I give myself a big fat D. I am not totally failing in the area of community but I am still struggling. Community is by far my biggest challenge right now. I think I put the least amount of importance on community. I just flat out need to pick up the phone and call people more. Period. I need way more outbound community.

But what I like about Jesus is that I think He considered all of these areas equally important. In His mind there was a place and time for each one and He MADE time for all of them.

So what about you?
Solitude. Community. Ministry.

How would you score? Which area do you make the least amount of time for?
I just want to encourage you. Find your weakest area and prayerfully ask God to help you make time.

For me, I am prayerfully asking God to help me make time to pick up the phone more.