2 Ideas to Not Waste Fall’s Opportunity for Change [Fall Focus Ideas – 1]

This is part of a 3-part series on “Fall Focus Ideas” to help you finish the year well. 

• 2 Ideas To Not Waste Fall’s Opportunity For Change
• 6 Ideas For Connecting With God In Meetings
• 2 Questions to Refocus on God in Everyday Life

Fall is a time for change. The time of year is busy and can be easy to miss but we do not want to waste fall’s opportunity for change.

It’s a season exploding in colorful imagery of change. Depending upon your part of the world, leaves change. A cooler breeze blows in. University campuses (and ministries) get into full swing. Exercise takes an earthy turn to raking and bagging leaves. Shadows lengthen sooner and sunrises get later.

Times of transition, like fall or graduations, are great places for assessing how we live and making a new change or adjustment in our lives. 

3 Areas to Check Out

Our fall season may look different depending on where you live or your season of life. But there are things we can all consider in how we do everyday life. 

Small course corrections are better than radical changes.

Small course corrections are better than radical changes. Course corrections help live life better, give more love and service to key people, and get out to do some of God’s good in the world. But assessing this is not always with the lenses you think. Sometimes it’s…

• Less about skills. More about timing. 
• Less about knowledge. More about wisdom.
• Less about activity or busyness. More about discerning the best. 

It can look like various things — and more is not necessarily better. As one prayerfully explores life, the results might come in various ways: 

• Cutting things not needed, bad habits, or wasteful practices.
• Adding things that you need (time with particular people, a hobby, more focus in work, etc.) 
• Renewing things that have slid off (exercise, sleep, times with God, etc.)

What could it be for you?

2 Ideas to Not Waste Fall’s Opportunity for Change

God’s intense love and goodness toward you is to have “life” (John 10:10) — to experience the good and the meaningful which God originally wished for human flourishing (captured in the rich and powerful vision of shalom). 

And the use of time is one of those. 

In Paul’s contrasting of living in the light (and the tensions that come with that) he notes being careful in how we live and making the most of our time (Eph 5:15-16). In other words, we can live our lives abiding in Christ in making the most of our time — not in hurriedness nor laziness — so that we find God’s rhythms for our life. 

We can live our lives abiding in Christ in making the most of our time — not hurriedness or laziness — so that we find God’s rhythms for our life.

Among those rhythms are everyday moments in your daily schedule or biological clock. Our lives of following Jesus are in physical bodies which do affect us. For example, physical exhaustion leads to falling into spiritual temptations. Depression can cause one to feel far from God when we are not. 

So here are two check-ups to live in better use of your time and stewardship of your life: 

1) For You, When is It Good to Do Things?

To explore how God has made us each different as well as similar, I found the book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink fascinating. See the book, a podcast interview or his website for more. Some ideas that come out of this are:

• “Best” times for each of us in focus and work.
• How break times are important (and can improve things, such as student scores).
• Changing a time of stumbling to a new beginning. 
• Why afternoons can impact your healthcare experience.

2) How Can You Better Practice Sleep? 

Fall is a notorious time of messing with our sleep as the light fades and some experience the practice of turning clocks back. But sleep is essential to our health. Some research-based tips in a quick summary (and it’s well-worth reading more if one of them hits you) are:

• Darkness & Light: The importance of decreasing light as you move toward sleep.
• Sleep & Stomach: 3 hours before bed stop eating. 
• Get Up at the Same Time: Your body follows the rhythms so changing it a lot (staying up later, getting up later on a weekend, etc.) does mess with you. 
• Sun and Eyes: A key to waking well is getting sunlight in your eyes. 
• Thinking Time: 10AM to 3PM

• Exercise’s Place: After work, before dinner. 

Don’t waste this fall transition as an opportunity for change. Try something new and make the most of your time — and the life God has given you!

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