TIME OUT
by Donnell Jones, Pastor, Grace Covenant Church DC
“ We cannot make more time, but taking timeouts is one way to make the most of all the time we have.”
Can you imagine for just a moment the 40-minutes of regulation basketball without any timeouts? No opportunity to pause, to consider, to refocus, to catch our breath. Of course, this is only an exercise in the imagination because the game actually has several timeouts, some called by the home team, some by the visiting team and some by the referee. Timeouts can be game changers, restful, and without question essential. Off the court, the pace of life feels too fast, the pressure of life too great, and the pause to reflect on life is sometimes too rare. In a life that is fast paced, full of great pressure, and rare pauses, allow yourself to stop for just a moment. Take a timeout! As for the pace of life, perhaps it is not more time we need but more awareness of how we allow anxious thoughts to convince us that we need something we really don’t need. The frenetic activity of our life flows less from too little time and more often from too much anxiety and worry. The result. Exhaustion. We cannot make more time, but taking timeouts is one way to make the most of all the time we have. As for pressure, we will always find ourselves facing some unwanted problem or troubling situation. This fact is unavoidable. There is a reason behind the design of good work out routines. Lifting weight is heavy. If you were to bench press 100lbs without stopping,
at some point the pressure would be overwhelming and you would find yourself unable to lift the bar off your chest. So the pressure is not a bad thing, but breaking the pressure of the weight into reps of 8 followed by rest and sets makes the pressure bearable. As for the pressure in life, make sure you take a timeout. We need to break it up in reps and we need help from others to spot us. This way you can manage the pressure over the course of life’s workout. As for a pause, there are times when we need to take a timeout out to reflect and refocus. After going a mile a minute, slow down and try going a mile in 20 minutes. It’s called a walk. We spend so much time running that we miss all the things that have always been right there a spouse, children, parents, a laugh with a friend, a moment to grieve, an opportunity to recover, to get back up and so much more. All these things have always been right there, you just can see them while running. They only become apparent when you decide to slow down, to walk, to pause and take it all in. If a game can have multiple timeouts, shouldn’t life? Life’s timeouts are essential. Sometimes others will call it for you. Sometimes timeouts are called by things like a pandemic. Sometimes you need to call it. Take a Timeout! You need it! Pastor Donnell Jones is pastor of Grace Covenant Church in Washington, D.C., Character Coach for the Maryland Terrapins and Chaplain of the NABC. www.GraceCovDC.org
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the NABC.
NABC
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TIME-OUT
WINTER 2022 |
19
