The Christian and Time

Winnie the Pooh is fairly intelligent for someone whose head happens to be stuffed with sawdust. One of the things that Pooh and his furry friends love to do best is to stand on the footbridge over the creek and drop twigs into the water on the upstream side. Then they all rush over to the downstream side of the bridge to see whose twig will emerge first. Will it be Eeyore’s, or Piglet’s, or Tigger’s? How will the currents and eddies of the creek change the arrangement of the twigs?

Seems to me that it might be wise for all of us to play this game every now and then. Just to stop and think about how our lives are turned and tumbled by the swirling waters of time.

As you probably know, our humble city is the headquarters of the Day-Timer organization. The purpose of Day-Timers is to keep America productive and on schedule (or feeling guilty if they’re not!)

Just think of it—the lives of thousands of busy managers and executives across the nation would come crashing to a halt were it not for that little pocket organizer that is produced right here in Allentown. Now THAT’S power!

In my desk drawer, I have several old Day-Timers from previous years. Occasionally, I’ll find myself leafing through them, reminiscing about the appointments, meetings, people, and activities they record. It’s like taking a trip through time. But what I’m really doing is playing a sophisticated version of Winnie the Pooh’s game.

I’m looking at the water that has gone under the bridge and asking myself “What difference did all this stuff make? How am I different? How is the world different? How is the cause of Christ different because I spent time on these activities?”

Moses, the man who wrote Psalm 90, may not have had a Day-Timer in the pocket of his robe. But he did a lot of thinking about time. And he wrote a Psalm about it—Psalm 90.

Moses begins that Psalm by telling us that when it comes to time, God is our ultimate reference point.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

We human beings, in contrast, are swept along by the rushing current of time, and utterly changed by it.

We are like the new grass of the morning—though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered. The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

So it is important, as Moses says in verse 12, that we learn how “to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” In other words, we need to learn how to manage time and use it wisely.

Suppose that someone were to hand you a check for half a million dollars today, what would you do with it? Well, you can probably think of a lot of things you would do with $500,000.

You might buy a new car, or maybe even a new house. You might pay off that loan that you’ve been carrying for so long. You might use some of the money to help out a family member who is in need. Who knows? You might even decide to quit your job and go back to school, or maybe start your own business.

But if you were really wise, you would take the bulk of that money and invest it in such a way as to yield a continuing return. By investing it, you would be able to reap dividends far into the future. Spending money makes it shrink, but investing it makes it grow.

Well, there’s little chance that someone’s going to hand you a check for a half million dollars. But I want you to realize that God has given us a gift that is far more valuable than money. He has given us the gift of time.

Tomorrow, God is going to give us a new year. The year 1996 is a leap year. So it’s going to have 366 days. That comes out to 8,784 hours, or 527,040 minutes. In other words, tomorrow God is going to give you a blank check for over a half million minutes.

Now you’ve got to figure out what to do with them. Obviously, some of them are already spoken for. You’re probably going to spend approximately 25–33% of that time sound asleep. If you’re a teenager, it’ll be more like 50%!

You’ll probably spend another 10–15% of your time on personal maintenance: things like eating, taking showers, and so forth. If you’re a teenager, that will account for the other 50% of your time.

But seriously, we have to decide what we are going to do with the remaining discretionary time that we have been given. Are we going to spend it? Or are we going to invest it?

I’d like to suggest three biblical principles that will help you to invest your time wisely in 1996. By following these principles, you’ll begin to understand how to make the best possible use of the most precious resource in the world.

1. Know your purpose

Let’s go back in history for a moment to 1776. Have you ever wondered how the Americans were able to beat the British in the Revolutionary War?

The British had a better army than the Americans did. Their soldiers had better training. They had a professional supply organization to keep their army in the field. They enjoyed overwhelming naval superiority. The British actually won more battles than they lost. So why did they lose the war?

They lost the war because they could never figure out exactly what it was they were fighting for. They didn’t have a clear purpose.

Were they supposed to be occupying and holding territory? Or were they supposed to be trying to find and destroy Washington’s ragtag army? Were they trying to change the attitude of the colonists toward the British crown? The British couldn’t decide what it was they were really trying to accomplish. So they lost the war because they didn’t know their purpose.

The same thing happened to the United States in Viet Nam—we lost the war because we didn’t really know what we were trying to do.

If you are going to live effectively, you need to know the purpose of your existence. If you are going to invest your time wisely, you need to know the reason you’ve been put here on this planet.

Managing your time effectively really boils down to managing yourself, and you can’t manage yourself unless you know what your mission is.

The Bible teaches us that we have been placed on this earth to serve God. We are not here by accident—the end result of a random combination of molecules.

As human beings, each one of us has tremendous value—a value that has been given to us by God. But we cannot realize that value, we cannot appreciate it, unless we put God at the center of our lives.

So many people try to find happiness and satisfaction and meaning to life by pursuing other things. But we can only find true happiness by pursuing God.

Jesus said “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

Our purpose on this earth is to live with God at the center of our lives. And if we live like that, then we are going to draw others’ attention to Him. We are going to influence other people to want to put God at the center of their lives too. That’s what being a Christian is all about.

So that’s our purpose. And that is the most important question we need to settle when we consider how to invest our time. What is my purpose? What is my mission?

We need to evaluate everything we do in light of our purpose. We need to ask “Is this activity going to help me to keep God at the center of my life?” “Is this activity going to help me to help other people want to put God at the center of their lives?”

The first principle in investing your time wisely is to know your purpose.

2. Keep a right perspective

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to be at the controls of a 17-foot speedboat on Lake Erie, just off Buffalo. There were several of us on board, and we had enjoyed a delightful time on the lake.

But when it was time to go home, I took the controls and steered the boat into the Niagara River. And as we passed under the Peace Bridge and began to head downstream, it was important that I keep the nose of the boat pointed toward our destination.

The Niagara River has a very strong current with a mind of its own. A few miles downstream the river takes a rather interesting dip. You may have heard of it—it’s called Niagara Falls. So it was important that I keep my eyes focused on our destination, and keep the boat pointing in that direction.

The same is true of life. We need to actively look where we’re going—to “fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2). The currents of daily living can so easily pull us downstream. After a moment’s inattention, we look up only to find ourselves ‘way off course.

One of the greatest things you can do to keep your perspective right is worship. Worship enables us to see our destination more clearly. Worship restores our perspective on life. In 1996, the best thing you can do to keep a right perspective is to make worship a regular discipline of your life! Make it a priority. Which leads to…

3. Prioritize around your purpose

Let’s go back to the speed-boat for moment. The fact that I was at the wheel made me different from the other people in the boat. I wasn’t doing what they were doing.

I wasn’t sitting there looking at the scenery going by. I wasn’t involved in conversation with the other people in the boat. My priorities at that moment were different from theirs, because my mission was to navigate that boat to our destination. That was my purpose, and my priorities reflected it.

Our priorities are always shaped by our purpose. If you believe that you are here to love God and serve Him, then that’s going to determine the set of priorities by which you govern your life.

But if you believe that you’re here to just basically have a good time, to live a comfortable and enjoyable life and then die, then that’s going to be what shapes your priorities. We always prioritize around our purpose.

People always find a way to do what they think is really important. It always amazes me how people will gladly travel 60 miles and pay over a hundred dollars to sit for three hours on a concrete seat in an ice-cold stadium in the rain to watch an Eagles game. But the same people will wake up on a Sunday morning, look out the window, and decide to skip church because the weather’s a little iffy.

If you think something is really important, then you will find a way to do it. So that means that your personal schedule is going to reveal what you believe to be really important in life.

When Jesus was in his last year of ministry, he retreated for a little while with his disciples to the northernmost part of the country. They went on a retreat. Jesus had things he wanted to teach his disciples far from the crush of the crowd.

But when he finished doing that, he knew it was time to go to Jerusalem. He had a date with destiny there. So the Scripture says “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

People along the way tried to dissuade him from going, but Jesus knew the reason he had come to earth was to die on the cross. He knew his purpose, and so he shaped his priorities around that purpose.

When you look at the way you spend your time, it all comes down to saying No to some things and saying Yes to others. But that’s easier said than done! How do you decide what you’ll say No to and what you’ll say Yes to?

Most people manage their time according to the “urgency model”; they’ll say Yes to things that are most urgent. They poke their stick at the nearest alligator. They make a To Do list, and they place the most urgent things at the top of that list. But the problem with the urgency model is that not all things that appear to be urgent are really important.

Have you ever thought about all the junk mail that you get? A management consulting firm in Pittsburgh estimated that the average person spends eight months in a lifetime opening junk mail.

Junk mail is covered with messages that scream URGENT - PRIORITY HANDLING - SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER - EXPIRES SOON - OPEN IMMEDIATELY, all in an effort to capture your attention. That mail comes all dressed up in the costume of urgency, but it is really just garbage. And in my house, that is where it goes, unopened. And the more stickers and hype on the envelope, the harder I throw it in the trash can.

Just because something appears urgent doesn’t mean it is important. You will find that most of the urgent things that come crashing into your life each day are really not very important in terms of your long range purpose.

So you have to be able to develop the ability to say No to the things that do not fit in with your God-given priorities. And the best way to say No to those things is to have a bigger Yes burning inside of you.

There’s an interesting axiom about life and time. Just as most of the urgent things in life wind up being not all that important, you will also find that the truly important things in life seldom seem terribly urgent.

Take a very mundane example: your car. Your car needs periodic maintenance. It needs the oil changed every three to five thousand miles. Now that’s important, but it’s not urgent.

There’s no mechanic standing over you waiting to hit you on the head with a wrench if you don’t get your oil changed. What’s going to happen if you let your car go beyond three to five thousand miles without changing the oil? Nothing.

Not right away, anyway. Your car will still run. But the longer you let it go, the worse it will run, and the chances are greater that you are permanently damaging the engine. And if you let it go too long, you’ll wake up one morning and your car simply won’t work anymore. Then you’ve got a crisis on your hands. Then it’s urgent.

You see, if you ignore the important things in life, they have a way of becoming critically urgent. Desperately urgent. Even tragically urgent.

Changing the oil in your car is pretty humdrum. What about your marriage? Your marriage isn’t going to fall apart if you don’t invest time working on it today. But put enough of those “todays” together, and it will fall apart.

Same is true of parenting. Your child isn’t going to suffer a whole lot just because you don’t invest time with her, and hug her, and tell her you love her today. But put enough of those todays together and your child will probably grow up wondering whether anybody really loves her.

Same is true of your spiritual life. You’re not going to fall away from the Lord just because you don’t read the Bible and pray today. But string enough of those todays together, and your love for God will imperceptibly begin to grow cold.

The most important things in life don’t come with a sticker marked URGENT on them. The only way to identify what’s really important is to:

1. know your purpose

2. keep a right perspective, and

3. prioritize around your purpose

I once saw a picture of a very unusual farm out in Nebraska. The farmer had sown his field with a variety of crops in a bewildering arrangement. If you were to have walked through his field, you would have come upon a strip of alfalfa, followed by a patch of corn, then an area of soybeans, then another strip of alfalfa. The arrangement would have made little sense.

But if you had flown over that farm in an airplane, you would have immediately understood why the crops were sown that way. The farmer had carefully and painstakingly produced an example of “crop art”. Using the natural colors and textures of the various plants, he created in his field a beautiful picture which could only be appreciated from the air.

In order to do that, the farmer deliberately selected and sowed the seed at the proper time. He prioritized his daily schedule around his ultimate purpose. And when the seed began to grow, it might have looked confusing from ground level, but that isn’t where that farmer’s perspective was. He was always thinking of his field and visualizing it from a higher vantage point.

That’s what we need to do in the New Year. When 1996 is over, and my Day-Timer is full, I wonder how many of those half million minutes will turn out to have been well-invested, or just spent, wasted, gone with no return.

In Ephesians 5:15-16, the Lord tells us to…

Ephesians 5:15-16 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

Let’s make the New Year count for Him.