Thought for November 15th

November 15, 2012

Time Management Skills

“There is a time to live, a time to die, a time to laugh, and at no time are the three of them very far apart.”

-       Spike Milligan

   Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, make the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

Ephesians 5:15-17

When I read “Cheaper By The Dozen” as a youth, I was awestruck by the notion that the parents of twelve children could have jobs as time management experts and that they could actually make enough money doing it to support a family of fourteen.  And one of the most intriguing things about these parents was that they employed their time management techniques in their family life at home.  Needless to say I was not yet aware of how important time management becomes as one gets older, I viewed it more as a lark.  Of course now, businesses spend thousands of dollars to send their employees to time management seminars.

Time seems to be the one thing that most people don’t ever seem to have enough of.  This is especially true in the church world.  If you don’t believe me just ask several people to do a time consuming task at the church and wait to hear all the reasons they just don’t have enough time to commit.

As Christians we could sometimes do with a little spiritual time management training.  Often the time constraints of our daily affairs don’t always include or allow for the proper amount of time needed to develop and foster a healthy and well balanced spiritual life.  It takes more than an hour or two on Sunday and maybe an hour on Wednesday, if nothing else is going on, to keep us spiritually fit and healthy.

A day with the Lord is as a thousand years, but until we reach eternity we will not experience that kind of time continuum, so we need to make a more concentrated effort to insure that we manage our time wisely from a spiritual perspective too.

In fact, our spiritual time management skills might be more important than our physical time management skills.  And in all probability, if we get the first one managed properly, the latter one would probably take care of itself.

Today’s Prayer

Father, time seems to be such a precious commodity here on earth: help me to manage time wisely and to let you prioritize the ways that I use it.

“There is a candle in every soul

Some brightly burning, some dark and cold

There is a Spirit, who brings a fire

Ignites a candle and makes His home.

Frustrated brother see how he’s tired to

light his own candle some other way.

See now your sister she’s been robbed and lied to

Still holds a candle without a flame.

So carry your candle, run to the darkness

Seek out the lonely, the tired and worn.

Hold out your candle for all to see it,

Take your candle, go light your world.“

-  Lyrics from ‘Go Light Your World’ by Chris Rice