There is an old saying that “time is money.” However, as a former boss of mine used to remark, “Time is not money; you can always get more money, but you can never get more time.” Ironically, although many of us are fastidious about considering how we spend our cash, we are a lot less intentional about how we manage our time even though it is a much more valuable resource. For the Christian, it is even more significant that we don’t waste the days that God has granted us because they are a stewardship that He intends for us to use for His glory. In other words, how we spend our time is not only a pragmatic issue, it is also a spiritual one. Therefore, it is helpful for us to consider how we spend our time from an eternal perspective as well as to establish some practical tips of how we may fully use the minutes and hours God has granted us for His glory.
In this endeavor, the foundational principle that should buttress our consideration of our days is that we should desire to be wise with our time. Wisdom, as has often been stated, is the application of Scripture to our lives. We don’t want to just consider how we can more effectively use our time to do more of what we want; instead, we should desire that our days are increasingly filled with more of what God wants. Scripture teaches us what is important to God and what He desires for our lives. Ephesians 5:15-16 specifically addresses the issue of how we spend our time when it states that we should “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk – not as unwise people but as wise – making the most of the time, because the days are evil” (CSB). In other words, because evil abounds and our time on Earth is limited, we should strive to maximize our eternal impact through how we spend our time. This will not happen on its own; it requires intentionality and dedication. We have to be committed to wanting to use our time for God’s Kingdom, and then we have to know how to do that. The commitment requires a heart that is surrendered to God and His ways. Once that is in place, here are some practical tips to ensure that we are being wise with our time.
1. Know how you spend your time
If we want to make sure that we are spending our time wisely, we need to know how we are spending our time. That might sound self-evident but it is amazing how quickly minutes, hours, and days can pass and we cannot clearly state how we used them. Managing any type of resource starts with understanding how much of that resource we have and how it is currently being consumed. Only then can we create strategies for making sure that we manage it better.
Most people have some general sense of how their time is being spent but many of them can’t clearly articulate how they have invested the hours that God has given them on any given day. Research has consistently shown that we tend to grossly underestimate how much time we spend watching TV or on our cell phones. Therefore, if we aren’t clear about how we send our time, it would be good to spend some time tracking it. Even the action of tracking our time can immediately help us be more careful with how we are spending it. (Who among us wants to write down that they spent 3 hours scrolling Instagram?) Keep a time journal for a week and then prayerfully and honestly evaluate how you have allocated your days. What are you giving your time to that are “time wasters?” (And a time waster may not be a specific activity, but how much time you spend in that activity. Again, Instagram is a great example.) What should you be allocating more time to? If we are a Christian who is dedicated to growing in the knowledge and love of God, it may shock us to find out how little time we actually spend investing in this endeavor.
2. Distinguish good from best
After we have tracked our time, we should formulate a plan for how we want to spend it (in contrast to how we currently are). This means reducing or eliminating time wasters, and it also means being intentional about what we invest time in. This can get tricky because there are a lot of good ways that we can spend our time, but still our time is limited. Therefore, we want to delineate what is “good” from what is “best.” What are the ways that we can maximize our particular impact for the sake of God’s Kingdom?
To make this determination, a few questions may be helpful. First, it is useful to ask what are the roles that are uniquely ours? For example – I am the only wife that my husband has and the only mother to my kids. No one else can fulfill these roles and so, for as long as God gives them to me, I need to make sure that I am dedicating time to each of these responsibilities.
Secondly, what are some of the specific ways that God has gifted us as individuals? For example – while I can plan a themed birthday party for a friend’s kid (and have done so!), God has not granted me the ability to do that well or with ease. However, there are some other areas where He has fearfully and wonderfully designed me to be especially effective. If I want to use my time well, I should concentrate on spending my time using these gifts. This doesn’t mean that I will never do anything outside my inherent areas of giftedness (again, I have planned a themed party before because there was a need and I could fill it), but it does mean that I will focus my time and attention on using the stewardship of my talents well.
The third question that we should consider is, “Am I using my time on what God prioritizes?” This is really the most important question of the three but I find it best to ask it last because it helps me further eliminate things that may be in keeping with my roles and may use my gifts, but isn’t what is most God-glorifying. I need to make sure I am managing my time to do what God wants me to do, not other people. Other people may see that we have certain gifts and abilities, and they may ask us to invest them in good ways, but that isn’t what God has for us, at least not now. For example, you may be a decorator par excellence and a committed member of your local church. A fellow church member may ask you to use your skills and talents to help decorate their new office. This is obviously a worthwhile endeavor and may be an opportunity to use your talents in a way that glorifies God. But if your plate is already filled because you have three young children at home, and you are leading a Bible study group, plus serving in an outreach ministry, you may need to say “no for now” to the decorating post. Of course, you may also prayerfully consider it and God may lead you to say “yes.” But we need to make sure that we are saying “yes” or “no” prayerfully; that we are prioritizing God’s will over our own.
3. Evaluate your season in life
Sometimes the distinction between what is “good” and what is “best” will be heavily influenced by our season in life, and it is helpful to take this into consideration. For example, I can be a decent cook with some time and effort, and feeding my family is in keeping with my roles. However, my family is in a season of life where elaborate meal prep does not align with the priorities that God has given us. This doesn’t mean that four-star home cooked meals are wrong; they certainly aren’t! But it does mean that for me, in this season, if I focused my time and attention on that it would be about what is important to me, and not what is important to God. I need to prayerfully lay my calendar at His feet and ask Him to make sure that what I think is “best” is aligned with what He does. As even the illustration in the previous point demonstrated, sometimes our answer to “is this a wise way to spend my time?” is “not right now.” It may not be “no” forever. There are good works that God has prepared for us beforehand in this season (Eph. 2:10), and there are good works that God has prepared for us for the next season. We need to consider what season God has placed us in, and say “yes” to the things that He most desires of us given the responsibilities and roles we have at that time.
4. Resist the urge to compare
Lastly, if we are going to make the most of our days it is important that we recognize that the days God has given us are not the same as the days He has given someone else. Neither has He given all His children the same roles and responsibilities, or the same trials or blessings during the same seasons of life. We have to be wise with our time considering what God has given us – the skills, the talents, the stewardships, and the opportunities. Resist the urge to compare your days with someone else’s. Maybe they can get more done than you because of a capability that God has given them or because they have behind the scenes help you know nothing about. Maybe some else’s day seems less filled to you but in reality, they are caring a heavy burden with their duties at home. Whatever the case may be, each of us will stand accountable before God for how we managed what He has given us – not what He has bestowed on another brother or sister in Christ. Let’s make sure we can stand before our Maker with confidence that we used what He entrusted to us for His glory. Let’s look to Him – not to another person’s calendar or stewardships.
Managing our time well means that we apply God’s wisdom in how we handle our days. In future posts I hope to provide even more practical tips for how we can make the most of the hours that God has given us. In the meantime, may we lay our calendar before Him asking Him to give us wisdom in what fills our days and what we set aside, trusting that if we ask Him in faith (James 1:5), He will graciously provide the wisdom that we need to do just that.
