Stewarding Time

What’s the one thing throughout history everybody on planet earth has in common?

It’s something that levels all of us; something inescapable.

Whatever colour, nationality, country we live in, what place we work, relationships, we have one thing in common…

• We all have 60 minutes in an hour
• We all have 24 hours in a day
• We all have 365 days in a year

We have time.

As busy and productive leaders, many of us long for more time. “If I just had more time”, we cry, but we have all the time in the world to do what God wants us to do. That means we need to find our if God has given us this to do, or if it’s for someone else to do, or if He doesn’t want it done at all. Too often, we can be distracted by good things when our focus needs to be on God-things.

Often we try to do everything, when God just wants us to focus on something!

In Ephesians 5:15 – 16, Paul writes…

“So be careful how you live.
Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise.
Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.”

We are challenged here to see time as s a gift.
How do we use it wisely?
What does God want me to do?
What should my priorities be?
What really matters?
What will I do today?

Martin Luther once famously said “I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first 3 hours in prayer”.

Imagine living in this kind of freedom and this level of intimacy with God?
But the truth for many of us is that when faced with pressure we choose panic over a pause.

The Bible never shows Jesus rushing anywhere, He was usually busy, but He found time to pray a lot. His total ministry was accomplished in three short years, but he found time to play with children, eat with friends, investigate a fig tree, take a nap during a boat ride, rest at noon-time beside a well, and attend a wedding reception.

When faced with pressure in his most agonising and painful moments leading up to his death Jesus chose to use his time to prioritise the presence of God above all else.

The psalms often encourage us to Selah – the Hebrew word referring to a voluntary and intentional pause for reflection.

The truth is that we live in a culture that elevates high-speed living and regards exhaustion as a status symbol, but this doesn’t have to be our way… there is a better way of living and stewarding our time.

The writer John Mark Comer in his excellent book about eliminating hurry, says ‘the solution to an over-busy life is not more time. It’s to slow down and simplify our lives around what really matters.’

So how do we do that?

Here are 4 Rs to help us consider how we steward time:

• Request heavenly wisdom: we need Gods help to get this right
• Reallocate time to seek first the kingdom of God and work on priorities
• Replenish your personal strength where high-speed living has taken its toll physically, emotionally and spiritually.
• Remember what’s important: loving God with the time we have, and loving others will always be the most valuable use of our time