12 Ways To Keep Spiritually Strong Over Christmas Break, Pt. 3
by on Dec 9th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Suggestion #7 - Plan Your Downtime
Downtime can be more dangerous to a man than any other time of the day, week, year, career, or life. When we have goals, objectives, an audience, or a source of accountability, we can excel at whatever we are trying to do or be, but when there is no objective, plan, audience, or source of accountability, we can get into all kinds of trouble. I am not saying that downtime is inherently evil. Having a space of time without responsibilities can be a gift, and part of Christmas break should be to embrace that gift. You will only get four of them!
The danger for us in downtime is not in the having it as much as it is in not having a plan for it. Over the past four school years, I have counseled dozens of men who have struggled and given in to viewing pornography. I often ask them to write out how they utilized the time in their past week. Without fail, the period of time in which they engaged in viewing pornography was the time that was unstructured, unplanned, or unscripted. Additionally, they were also alone during that downtime.
During Christmas break, you might have long stretches of time where you are alone and/or free from responsibility. If you don’t have a job, spend time serving others, or minister at your church, you could have weeks of nothing to do. This is a spiritually deadly place to be if you do not actually see these periods of time coming and make plans in advance to avoid the sinful traps lie in waiting for you there.
If you know that you are going to have the house to yourself while your parents are working during the day, make a plan to address the fact that you will be theoretically able to view all the pornography on the computer that you desire for the next several hours. Be a man, identify your weaknesses, and give the internet chord to your father or mother. Get out of the house and find somewhere public where you can spend your time. This is where suggestions 1, 2, and 3 have so much value because they eliminate excessive downtime.
Planning your downtime really involves three steps: identifying when that downtime will occur, identifying what temptations you will most likely face during those times based on where you will be and what your struggles are, and then finding ways to eliminate or flee those temptations. I know this sounds exhausting, but being tired is far better than being destroyed. Above all, never forget that the whole point of guarding our time is so that we can be strengthened by the Spirit of God to reflect of the image of the Son of God for the glory of God. When you make an honest effort to honor Him, He will strengthen you in that act of faith.
Suggestion #8 - Take Advantage of the Better Side of the Internet
When you are able to make use of the internet in an environment where there is accountability and less temptation to indulge in pornography, utilize the better side of internet by reading from Christian authors or listening to messages from men of God who inspire you in your walk with Christ.
I have provided several links for you on this site if you want to interact with men of God who care about growing in Christ and making a difference in their culture. There are tens of thousands of hours of sermons, conference messages, and podcasts from men to mark and follow available to you online, and you can listen at your leisure. Their thoughts will turn your thoughts to matters of substance. You don’t have to be obsessive. An hour here or there will do, but at least you are honoring God, taking this free time to grow, and redeeming a technology that is tremendously unique and tremendously perverted.
Suggestion #9 - Engage the Difficult Situations
Some of you are dreading your return to home. The reasons can be legion: your family is falling apart, unemployment is crippling your father’s dignity and stressing the family beyond the point of hope, your church is cannibalizing itself over petty doctrinal matters or bad leadership, your loneliness or singleness is only amplified by going home, or the addictions that grip you now are all sourced in what is readily available at home. I can’t say that I dreaded returning home every time a break arrived, but there were a couple of breaks in which I wanted to stay at school or go anywhere else because of what was waiting for me in my hometown.
If I could go back in time get those breaks back, I would have approached them in a different way than I did as a student. The tragedies and trials of life are not situations that Christians should strive to escape, even though our very natures long for the release of the pressure or the pain. As painful as our situation may be, we should look for God’s sovereign hand in it so that our pain is not wasted, but used by Him to glorify His name and rescue those around us who have an eternity of anguish awaiting them if they do not respond in their momentary times of pain and struggle. We must look to what God is teaching us, how He is establishing in us the kind of perseverance that is necessary for faithful service in a sin-saturated world.
If you are one of those students whose break is almost guaranteed to be filled with familial strife, medical uncertainty, financial desperation, or relational isolation, do not lose heart. You might be entering a very strategic time in which He is calling you to be His servant in the midst of a seemingly hopeless situation. You are never beyond the help of the Holy Spirit if you remain sensitive to the leadership of the Father and the word of His Son. Endure. Persevere. You may return to school exhausted, but you will return stronger and with greater wisdom about life that will be worth more than any break. I know that what I’m saying sounds simplistic, but I say is as someone who is scarred and marred by his fair share of storms. I know all about confusion, the clock-stopping shock that overwhelms in the midst of traumatic news or events, the tears that stream from a lonely heart late at night, and the longing for some form of physical relief that will not come. Not one of them has ever diminished the power of God in my life or the lives of those who, by faith, trusted their Savior in their times of difficulty. You can trust Him too.