Overwhelmed? Balancing Discipleship, Chores, and Life’s Demands

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In today’s episode of the Foundation Worldview Podcast, Elizabeth Urbanowicz addresses a heartfelt question from a parent feeling overwhelmed by the demands of daily life and the responsibilities of discipling children. How can Christian parents balance spiritual growth, chores, work, and family life without burning out? Elizabeth shares practical steps for identifying priorities, finding time for Scripture, and training children to take on helpful responsibilities at home. Tune in for encouraging reminders of God’s grace and practical insights to simplify your parenting journey.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello, friends. Today's podcast question says, "how can normal parents manage to do all of the things you say we should do? You often say this takes time, individual Bible times, discipline after every sin, Bible reading, hospitality, with the daily washing, cooking, homeschool, laundry, and for some of us, an outside job, is this really even all possible?" I'm so grateful that the questioner wrote in with this question because it's an important one for us to think through that all the things we talk about on the Foundation Worldview podcast, all of the things that are so important in discipling our children, is it even possible to do all of these things? So to the questioner who wrote in this question, thank you so much for writing in with it, and I'm really excited to dive down deep into it today on the Foundation Worldview Podcast where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview.

Now we're going to look through the different facets that this questionnaire included, but first just to this questioner, one thing I want to encourage you with today is this past week with one of the girls I'm discipling. We've been memorizing Hebrews chapter 10 verse 14 this week and well, let's see if I can get it right. It says, it talks about how Christ with a single sacrifice has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Now, I might've gotten a word or two wrong there because I'm still working on this memorization, but I love how this verse talks about how Jesus has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, which means that you have already been perfected, you have already been justified in Christ, even though you and I and all Christians are still in this very long sanctification journey, where we are being conformed more into the image of Christ. So before God, you stand clothed in Jesus's righteousness. He sees you with the perfected righteousness of Christ even as you're walking this long, difficult, arduous journey of sanctification. So I just wanted to encourage you that you can rest in that, that Jesus has perfected for all time you and me and every other believer, even while we are going through the process of sanctification.

Now, the first thing that I want to mention to this questioner, to all listeners, even to myself, is that God has given us the time to do all that he has called us to do, but he has not necessarily given us the time to do everything that is on our plate. And that means that sometimes there are things on our plate that are not things that he has called us to do in this season. Now, those of you who are Faithful Foundation Worldview podcast, you know that I'm single. I'm not married, I don't have children. My experience with children is mainly in the classroom, as an aunt, as part of the body of Christ. So I don't know personally all of the very stressful and time consuming aspects of discipling children and being a wife or a husband and a mom or a dad. I do understand what it feels like to be overwhelmed. Even just this past spring, I was in a season of life where there were so many things on my plate at work. There were so many things on my plate at church. There were so many things on my plate relationally just with different relationships that needed some extra time and attention. And there was one week in April where I was in a wedding in June, and there was a bachelorette weekend in April where we went away and I just remember while everyone else on the bachelorette weekend went off to do an activity, I just had so much work that I had to do. I stayed behind just so that I could work on work while everybody else was off doing something else. And I just remember sitting there and I just broke into tears and I was just like, God, I can't do it. This is too much. I can't do all of these things. I can't be everything that everybody needs me to be. And as I was crying and crying out to the Lord, the Lord brought to mind the ministry of Jesus and how Jesus did a lot, but there was even more that he did not do. There was many more people in the nation of Israel that he did not heal than those that he healed. There were many more people in the nation of Israel that he did not feed than those he fed. But what he did was he did all that God had called him to do.

Now in our lives this is a little bit more complicated because Jesus is God the son. So he knew what God's exact will specific will for him was, but just want to really encourage all of us to remember that God has given us the time to do all that he's called us to do. But that doesn't mean he's given us the time to do everything that's on our plates. And so we really need to be intentional about discerning what has God called me to do in this season. So I just want to walk us through three very practical steps that I think we can take to really try to determine what has God called me to in this season.

And so the first very practical step is just to sit down one evening, try to carve out a half hour to an hour of time and map out your current schedule. Just map out how is each hour of the day spent and then look over it and see is there anything on this schedule that is not beneficial? Because if there are things on the schedule that are not beneficial, those are things that we should get rid of things, that we should automatically take off our plates if they're not beneficial. Then the next question we should ask ourselves is anything on this schedule beneficial but it's not necessary? And circle those things. Now, if they're beneficial but not necessary, it doesn't mean that we automatically cross them off our schedule, but we just highlight them as being things that are good, but they're not necessarily necessary and therefore we need to actually spend time praying through, Lord, is this how you have called me to spend my time in this current season? And then the next thing I think we need to look at is in our schedule, are there any areas where we are not efficiently using our time?

Just a really practical example, I'm thinking that this person who wrote in sounds like it's a woman and you may be the one who is doing the cooking for your family because the questionnaire talked about the cooking, and so are you being efficient in your meal prep? Are you having to run to the grocery store two to three times a week for things that you've forgotten to get? Is there a way that you could just have to make one grocery store trip a week? Could you be intentional on Sunday evening or whenever it is to write down all of the things that you're going to need? Could you be intentional at buying extra of things that are not perishable so you just have extra things in your cabinet? Could you be intentional at the way you plan your meals so that it doesn't take a lot of mental energy? I know one thing my sister does is she names each night of the week. I think Mondays are Mexican in her household, so as she's thinking through her family schedules for the week, she doesn't have to think, what am I going to make for Monday and give it a lot of thought where she just goes to Mexican Monday and she's like, okay, I can make tacos. I can make fajitas, or I don't know what else she makes. But if you can just become a little bit more efficient in some of the areas of your life, that can really help. So that's the first thing to do, just to sit down and map out your current schedule, identify the things that aren't beneficial to get rid of any things that are beneficial but aren't necessary, and therefore you need to pray through if that's what God has on your plate for the season. And then look for any areas in which you're not being efficient with your time so that you can add little things into help you be more efficient.

The second thing that I would encourage you to do is then once you have that schedule mapped out, pray through what to prioritize, specifically pray through, Lord, what have you called me to in this season? And then what are some good things that maybe in this season just are not possible? And it can be beneficial to sit down and do this with your spouse, or if you can't do this with your spouse, sit down with a trusted brother or sister in Christ at your church to think through this and have their input. So I would encourage you as you think through what to prioritize, one of the things that we all need to prioritize is Scripture. Now for different seasons of life, this is going to look different. For example, I am a single female and I work for myself, so it's very possible for me and most mornings I do this carve out at least a half hour of time for Scripture reading and time of prayer with the Lord. Now, for me, in this season of life that is possible. You may have five children all under the age of eight and a half hour of solitary Bible time might not be possible, but you can still carve out five to 10 minutes during the day to spend time in Scripture, and that is needed for you and it's needed for your children that you're going to be a better parent when you spend time in God's word just as you're a better parent when you consistently eat, you don't give up three meals a day so you can be doing things for your children because you would not be nourished physically and you would be grumpy and crabby. It's similar with our spiritual nourishment that our children are much better off when we take time out to spend time with the Lord in his word and in prayer.

Another thing that obviously needs to be prioritized is basic family needs that things like cooking meals and cleaning the house and either helping our children with their homework or if they're homeschooled with their schoolwork. These are things that are basic family needs and those are things that need to be prioritized. And then I would also encourage you to pray through what things might you need to put on hold in this season. Again, I'm single, so my life looks different, but even in my life in this current season that I'm in, I have had to put hospitality on hold for the past two months that I typically have people over to my house to practice hospitality at least once a week. However, over the past eight weeks, I've had to put that on hold because of the season that I'm in. First off, a big hurricane, went through my, sorry, went through my hometown last month and I was displaced from my home for almost three weeks, and I was out of state waiting for the electricity and the water and the internet to be restored, so I couldn't practice hospitality during that time. Then I was also on the road for several different speaking engagements. I can't practice hospitality when I'm gone, and then I was sick for about 10 days, and so I couldn't practice hospitality during that time. So for that season, I had to put hospitality on hold, but in the next season, in the next two weeks, I'm going to be picking that up again. So just pray through, are there things that you need to put on hold maybe in your life? Maybe it is hospitality, maybe for a few months you need to say, you know what? We really can't have anybody over because of X, Y, or Z. Now, I would encourage you not to make that something you put on hold for a year or two, but just think through in this season, is this a season where you need to take your children out of sports right now? Because that's just putting too much on your plate. Is it a season where maybe even midweek programming at church is just too much for your family and you're not having time for discipleship at home? Pray through what things need to be put on hold potentially in this season.

Then my third recommendation, after sitting down with your schedule and then praying through what to prioritize, my third recommendation would be to get very practical. Get very practical at making sure you are not running yourself ragged. Now, depending on your personality type, it can be very easy as a parent and specifically as a mom to just run yourself ragged. Again, I'm not a mom, but I know for my personality I'm very type A, I like things to be organized and controlled. And so the first few years that I was a teacher, I was running myself ragged in the classroom because I was taking on so many responsibilities that my students were capable of doing, but I hadn't trained them to do well. So whenever I asked them to do it, they did it poorly. So things like sweeping the classroom, cleaning the desk, organizing the books, shutting down the computers, cleaning the shelves and dusting them, like cleaning the computers, things like that, or all things that I was doing myself because my students weren't doing a good job of it and I was running myself ragged. And so what I started to do around, I think it was around my fifth year of teaching is I started to be intentional at systematically training my students for specific classroom jobs that they were capable of doing, but I hadn't had them do before. Now, this took a lot of time. It took a lot of time to invest in training them to do the jobs well. However, the investment that I made over the first few weeks of school paid off dividends in that what it used to take me about, probably about 90 minutes to do after school. My students collectively were able to do in 10 minutes. So that saved me about 90 minutes a day. Now, I'm not saying that you can train your children to do things that are going to save you 90 minutes a day. I don't know, maybe you can, but even if it's just saving you 20 to 30 minutes a day by training your children to do certain things that can help you not run yourself ragged.

Now, when I would train my students to do specific jobs, I would actually have them stay in from recess for five to 10 minutes for two whole weeks in a row, and I would model for them how to do the task that I wanted them to do, and then I would have them practice. Then they would explain it to me and we would go through this for multiple days. Did they enjoy it? No. Did it frustrate them some? Yes. But by training them for those two weeks, they knew how to do the job well, and anytime they didn't do it well, I was able to call 'em over and say, Hey, let's look at this. Tell me what you didn't do today with this. Then they were able to do it, and I would say, okay, you know what? I think you need to stay in for recess the next few days to practice this. Did they want to stay in for recess? No. So they'd stay in for recess, and then that was a huge motivator for them to get the job done right after that so they didn't have to stay in for the first few minutes of recess again. So just some things to help you think through. These are just some practical things that your children are capable of doing around the house by a certain age.

Now, these ages that I'm going to give are general, depending on the child's development, they may be ready for this a year or two before or a year or two after, but just some general ages. By the time your child is three, they're old enough to be trained to put their clothes in the laundry basket and to bring their plate and fork and spoon bowl, whatever it is to the kitchen sink after they're excused from the dinner table. So by three, you can train your child to put their clothes in the laundry basket and to bring their plate to the sink. There's other things you can train them to do as well. If you have certain things that you've trained your children three and under to do, please feel free to write those in the comments on YouTube. I think that can be helpful for us to see just what others have trained their children to do. By the age of five, your child is old enough to do those things I already mentioned. Plus, they can set the table, they can help load the dishwasher, they can make their own bed. Now, if you're thinking, oh my goodness, there's no way my five-year-old could do this. Yes they can. They can do this, but it requires training, and that training might take two or three weeks of going over and over and over and over and over the same thing, and you might feel like they're never going to get this. I just want to bang my head against the wall. But if you invest that time upfront, if you invest 10 to 15 minutes for three weeks in a row and your child is able to do that task for the next 15 or so years that they're at home, think about the hours, days and even weeks. You will have saved yourself. By the time your child is seven, they're old enough to take out the trash. They're old enough to sweep the floor, they can wipe down the counters, they can set out their clothes for the next day. By the time your child's nine, they're old enough to be trained to clean the bathroom, to scrub the sink, to scrub the toilets, to scrub the showers. They'll also be able to vacuum and mop and dust. By the age of nine, they're also old enough to be trained to prepare basic meals, whether that's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or scrambled eggs. They're old enough to be trained how to do that. They're old enough to be trained how to do the dishes, how to do a load of laundry. Now, I'm not suggesting that you burden your child with chores that are going to take them four hours a day. That's not what I'm suggesting, but I'm just suggesting that our children are capable of so much more than we give them credit for, and by not equipping them to do these things, we are unnecessarily burdening ourselves. Then when you think about it, by the time your child is 12, they're old enough to be trained to cook basic meals independently. You might want to make it so that one night every other week or even one night a week that your child is responsible for cooking dinner. You can train them with how to make two or three basic meals, and you always buy the ingredients, and you can be there in case they need some help, but they should be able to do that independently. Again, if you've trained your children at different ages to do different things around the house that are helpful, please feel free to write those in the comments on YouTube. I think it can be really encouraging for us to read those.

One other thing to think through, I know that I just listed a whole bunch of chores. One thing to remember is that training our children in these chores is actually beneficial for them. Not only is it helping us not run ourselves ragged, but it's beneficial for them because it's training them in necessary life skills. It's giving them the skills that they're going to need to one day manage their own household. It's also teaching them that they are a needed member of your family. Once I started training my students in specific jobs, it was really interesting that the students in my classroom started to notice much more when another student was absent. Now, we always missed the students on days when they weren't there, but it was even more noticeable that a student was absent when all of a sudden the floor wasn't swept or the chairs weren't put up, and we were able to say, oh, man, when you were here yesterday, our classroom really felt it. And so training our children in jobs helps them understand that they are a needed, valuable member of the family. It also helps them build a responsibility in a world that just values just only having fun and not taking on any responsibility. So by giving our children more and more responsibility, we are training them to be responsible with the tasks, not only that we give them, but with the tasks that God has called them to.

So for this questioner, just want to remind you again that Christ has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. So when God looks at you, he sees Jesus's righteousness, even in this process of sanctification where we are growing to become more like Christ. Then also want to remind you, encourage you, sit down, map out your family's schedule, pray through what to prioritize, and then get really practical in training your children to help with certain things around the house so that you are not running yourself ragged. Well, that's a wrap for this episode, but if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a Future Foundation Worldview podcast, you could submit that question by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to inform you more into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.