By Chris WittsThursday 16 Mar 2023Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Did you know there are 168 hours in each week? So what? The average person will spend about 56 of those hours sleeping, 24 hours eating and on personal hygiene, and about 50 of those hours working or travelling to work. That means there are only about 35 hours a week of time left to do other things. That’s about 5 hours per day that we have a choice of what to do with our time. We take it for granted, and sometimes the hours slip by and we haven’t achieved much at all.
We may have surfed the internet, watched television or read magazines. But what about our family? How much time do we give to them? Studies have shown that fathers spend an average of 8 minutes-a-day during the week and 14 minutes-a-day on weekends in different activities with their children. I know we live in a time of pressures, but how important is quality family time? Very important. God is the creator of time, and he alone controls time.
Find Your Priorities
I like the story of the time-management expert who was teaching a seminar for executives. He placed eight rocks into an empty jar until it was full. He then placed some pebbles until the jar was full and reached the brim. Is this jar full?, he asked, and then in went some sand. Then he got some water and filled up the jar again. What’s the lesson about time management?, he asked, and everyone agreed with one person’s answer: No matter how busy you are you can always fit more things into your schedule.
Wrong, he replied. The lesson is: unless you put the big rocks in first, they never will fit in. You must work out what the big rocks are for you.
I think that’s a great statement. What are the big rocks for you? Time and service for God, giving him your time and priority? Giving time to your marriage and to your children? If you don’t put those big rocks in first, someone else will fill up your jar. Steven Covey, in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says:
You can’t really manage time. You can’t delay it, speed it up, save it or lose it. No matter what you do time keeps moving forward at the same rate. The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage yourself.
Did you know how the Bible describes time? The Bible speaks of ‘redeeming the time’ which is a much better idea. Ephesians 5:15-16 (NKJV) says: “See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil”. But the old King James translation was good, too. ‘Redeem the time’—the Greek word means ‘go out into the market place and buy back the time’. Another version says, “these are evil times, so make every minute count”. Surely this means to live wisely looking for opportunities to serve God and other people. When an opportunity passes, we can’t get it back. It’s gone forever. That’s what it means to ‘redeem the time’.
Allocate Your Time Wisely
If you have children as I do, you will realise how quickly time passes by as they grow up and move onto their own adult lives. The Bible says in James 4:14 (CEV): “What do you know about tomorrow? How can you be so sure about your life? It is nothing more than mist that appears for only a little while before it disappears”. Life is brief and it’s so important to make happy memories for our children and friends. We have lots of the latest technology but still come home exhausted, many of us exhausted by the pace of life.
Let’s determine to make space in our life and not get overloaded. Take time to think—relax and enjoy life. Take better care of your health because our body needs time to unwind. Race cars make pit stops in order to get repaired. You can’t fix anything when you race all the time. Make time to build stronger relationships with others. When we don’t make relationships a priority and make time for each other, our relationships suffer.
Do you make time to be available to God and to read his Word? God could well say, I have plans for you—listen to me, but you’re too busy. You can end up resenting the great opportunities God brings into your life. Time is God’s precious gift. Today is the best day you have to serve God and to serve others. Why not make the most of your time by letting God in your life and letting his love work through you? That is truly making the most of your time and is the only thing that lasts beyond this life. All else will be forgotten.
Benjamin Franklin said, “Do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of”. True—time is life. When life has run out, life has gone. The 19th-century American poem “Little Things” by Julia Fletcher Carney says:
Little drops of water,
little grains of sand,
make the mighty ocean
and the pleasant land.
So the little minutes,
humble though they be
make the mighty
ages of eternity.