You may also need to consider to what extent you can simplify your life-style. Said Solomon: “Sweet is the sleep of the one serving, regardless of whether it is little or much that he eats; but the plenty belonging to the rich one is not permitting him to sleep.” (Ecclesiastes 5:12) Is a lot of your time and energy devoted to caring for unnecessary material possessions? Really, the more things we own, the more things we have to maintain, insure, repair, and protect. Might it be to your advantage simply to divest yourself of certain belongings?

No doubt you are striving hard to be busy in worthwhile spiritual activities. It helps, though, to scrutinize yourself regularly. From time to time, you might ask yourself questions such as: ‘Is my service participation and meeting attendance suffering because I have taken on unnecessary secular work?’ ‘Do I have time for recreation but little time for personal and family study?’ ‘Do I expend much time and energy caring for material possessions but fail to care for needy ones in the congregation, such as the sick and the elderly?’ The answers to these questions might reveal a need on your part to give greater priority to spiritual works.