Where did the time go?
Suppose you had a bank account that every morning at 6, the bank deposited $86,400 into your account … the one requirement was that you had to spend it all that day - any unused money would be debited back out of the account. What would you do? You’d figure out a way to use it, wouldn’t you?!
That is exactly what God does with each one of us each and every day. He gives you 24 hours - eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds. At the end of the day, any that’s unused or misused or didn’t use, you lose. If you don’t use it, you lose it. And you’re never going to get it back.
The Bible tells us that life is a trust and life is a test. God says I have entrusted certain things into your hands: time, money, abilities, relationships, intelligence, freedom of choice — everything you have in your life is a gift from God.
He says, also while you’re on earth I’m going to be testing you. I’m going to watch for how you live out the answer to this question, “What did you do with what you were given?”
In Ephesians 5 Paul says this “Live life with a due sense of responsibility, not as those who don’t know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days.”
God says here that He wants you to use your time wisely because you know the meaning and purpose of life — this life is preparation for the next. God says I want you to know the meaning and purpose of life and let those purposes that I have for your life guide and determine how you use your time and make the best use of it.
God has a lot to say about time management in the Bible – far more than we could cover in just one session. So let me summarize with three introductory remarks about time ….
1. The Bible teaches that time management is actually life management.
Today when we talk about managing your time we’re actually talking about controlling, managing, guiding, directing your life. Because your time is your life. If you don’t have any time, the moment your time’s up your life’s up here on this planet. So time is your life. What that means – the implication is – any time you’re killing time, you’re committing suicide. Killing time is suicidal because you’re giving up part of your life. You’ll never get it back again. You need to decide what is worth the investment of my time. What is it worth it in the grand scheme of things?
2. The second thing that God says about time is that the problem isn’t time. It isn’t my lack of time. My problem is my choices.
The problem is not that you don’t have enough time. The problem is you don’t use it wisely. You make poor choices. And those poor choices are the cause of stress and pressure in your life.
We all have the exact same amount of time. You and I and everybody around us have one hundred sixty-eight hours in a week. So what’s the difference between the people who are more effective than you, the people who are more successful, the people who get more done than us? Do they have more time? No. They just make better choices.
That’s the bad news. Now here’s the good news.
3. The good news is that time management can be learned.
That’s good because it means that some of us just aren’t naturally good at managing our time. BUT, it’s something you can learn. The Bible says this in Psalm 90 “Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are. Help us to spend them as we should.” You can be taught how to be far more effective with your time.
More on this next week …
One Response to “Where did the time go?”
????? ?? ???????!…
If you don’t use it, you lose it. And you’re never going to get it back…..
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