Making Time Where There is None
We are busy people. For some, it is a badge of honor demonstrating productivity and worth. For others it is a demanding, stressful prison sentence with no release date. Most of us attempt to responsibly manage our time, but busyness grows like weeds to manage us. On Judgment Day, I don’t believe God will be asking how we kept ourselves busy, but whether we have been obedient to love others as He has loved us. In truth, busyness frequently militates against important relational contacts and presence.
A cursory look at most families would reveal that husbands and wives are often two ships passing in the night; that parents don’t have the time they want to invest in their children, and children likewise have become busy with school and extra-curricular activities. The value of the individual is diminished by default, as value is perceived where people are prioritized and communion is not only practiced, but celebrated. So, what is the answer to attaining more time in a 24-hour day, where approximately one-third is devoted to the recharging time of sleep?
I sometimes imagine God, living outside of our linear time, watching us scurrying around like ants, always governed by the clock and the calendar. He sadly shakes His head as we wear ourselves out, constantly running faster on the figurative hamster wheel. From His vantage point, He knows and sees the issues, the answers, and the end results. He knows the way through, but do we pause long enough to seek His direction? Are we willing to sacrifice our precious time to wait on Him?
God says in Isaiah 43:19, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Even so, most of us have conferred our deadlines onto God. When He doesn’t perform on schedule, we feel compelled to take over – the clock is ticking. It is a scary thing to trust that God would actually take time out of His busy schedule of managing the world’s affairs to show us how to do something as insignificant as reordering our day or reprioritizing our lives. Besides, what if we don’t like His ideas?
But where our busyness generates a certain amount of impatience with God and others, God is very patient with us. He already knows which of us will take that daunting leap of faith, and who is still trapped in fear and distrust. For those of us in the latter group, His grace gives us the space to learn, even if it’s the hard way. That sometimes means we suffer physical and emotional distress that actually takes us out of the game, so that it is in recovery, sitting on the bench, that we learn the hard lesson of what is truly important. The rat race is not it, but relationship is, and that starts with our relationship with Him.
God did not create linear time to produce pressure, but to bring order. Order negates chaos, and our Father is the Source of all order, making it foolish to try managing it ourselves. It is significant that Jesus always spent daily time with His Father to receive His marching orders for the day. How much more should we follow His example, not only for time management, but most importantly for deepening our relationships with God and others.
Time is God’s gift to man. Seeking His instruction for specific allocations maximizes its use, and making it a priority to give back to Him a portion of what He has given us results in His blessing. Choosing to align with God’s priority of loving others when it is inconvenient is the key to finding time where there seems to be none. It is a big step of trust. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6) Are we ready to lay down our agendas to make Him Lord of our time?