You Might Be a Workaholic...

If you are from the Deep South, you have to like Jeff Foxworthy.  He made the word "redneck" universally famous. He was the one who said, "You might be a redneck if all of your salad bowls have "Cool Whip" stamped on them." Nobody knows how to identify a redneck better than Jeff Foxworthy.

I came across some ways you can identify a workaholic. In case you are wondering whether or not you might be one, just consider the following:

• If it frustrates you that they don't allow laptops on a Ferris wheel, you might be a workaholic.
• If you are looking forward to Christmas this year because you've decided to take that afternoon off, you might be a workaholic.
• If you promised your spouse, "This is the only Sunday I'm going to work" more than ten times in the last year, you might be a workaholic.
• If you bring your spreadsheets to your son's football game, you might be a workaholic.
• If you set your alarm for 2 am and 5 am, so you can check your email, you might be a workaholic.
• When people who love you say you work too much on a consistent basis, you are probably a workaholic.
• If you always take office equipment with you on a vacation, you are probably a workaholic.
• If you feel guilty when you are not working on something, you are probably a workaholic.
• If your work provides you more happiness and excitement than anything else in your life, you are probably a workaholic.
• If long work hours have hurt your family relationships, you are probably a workaholic.

There are some serious telltale signs that you do have a tendency to be a workaholic. The United States has now become the world leader in nonstop work. We don't call it "the American work ethic" for nothing. The average American works nearly 2,000 hours a year and about 40% of Americans put in a 50 hour work week. This is not a problem to take lightly. Everybody knows the problem, but the question is, "What is the solution?"

I've got good news for you. Believe it or not, the solution is found at the very beginning of time, at the very beginning of human existence, at the very beginning of life, at the very beginning of the Bible. The God who worked to create this world and the God who created the very concept of work and the God who created the very first worker didn't even let life get started without instructing us on how to maintain balance in our lives.  It is all found in three small, simple verses.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work, which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." (Genesis 2:1-3)

When you take the time to observe the Lord's Day and you take that as your Sabbath—and you not only rest your body and refresh your soul but also replenish your spirit—you are letting God know that you trust Him to provide for you the other six days of the week.