Getting serious about one’s life might start with time management, but it needs to end with eternity. Having enough personal value to keep a schedule of our time is a good starting point that many of us never reach. But we are much more valuable than our schedule and there is a lot more to our time than what is passing by so quickly.
Good management hopefully leads to the greater good
I briefly taught the Leadership Team the other night that time management is not just in one’s mind, as if following the laws of effectiveness will really result in getting what needs to be done accomplished. “Good time management” can also lead to burn out and joyless toil. Lots of good managers are resentful, put-upon people who don’t feel like they have a life, just a schedule. For our purposes in the church (and where else is there but “in the church,” since we are in Christ?), time management is from the heart, not just the head.
I was drawn deeper into my heart to meditate on my time not long ago. I was praying about what I should do. I always have a million things to do, but almost every day I wonder what I should be doing. I was thinking about the limits of my time (for one thing, the social security trust fund is dying when I am about 80, so that’s one limitation!). While I was praying, a surprising word came to me: “keep building.”
I somehow connected that word to Nehemiah and discovered that he probably began the walls of Jerusalem when he was in his thirties, but he kept rebuilding the city until he was in his 80’s, or so Josephus implies. I did not think I needed to keep building things — on the contrary, I hope I never get into another building project! But as I meditated, I realized what the Lord was telling me was about the process of building, not the results of building.
More things and more buildings could be important, and more well-built Jesus-followers is certainly a worthy goal. But there was something deeper. I needed to be encouraged when it came to the building that builds me. “Keep building” was about the verb, not the noun. The joy in exercising the gifts God gives me feeds my heart. At the heart of me, I am a builder. What is happening in my schedule doesn’t really change that.
Jesus gives us food that feeds our deepest hunger
I don’t think I will efficiently build things unless I find joy in building. My mind may be kind of useless if my heart is not in it, and even deeper, if my soul is not in it. I don’t think you will manage your time for the greatest good, unless you have a heart that loves the greatest good. The greatest good is God. We are going for being like Jesus when he said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). Does saying that mean Jesus was working too hard? His schedule might suggest that. Or is he just working out who he is? What Jesus does doesn’t make Jesus who he is. Neither does merely doing our assignments efficiently and most profitably makes us good workers. We are works of God who need to work out what we have been given to be, like a tree needs to grow.
To use our time well, we need to feel our value and respect the value we bring to the greater good. No amount of scheduling will solve the problems of lack of heart, not hearing from God, and not feeling your true self. Choosing how to allot our time will always be hard, but it is only when our food is to do the work of the One who sent us that we can face the challenges with our jobs and commitments and not just bend under the load of our anxiety or fatigue.
Our twenties and thirties are crucial for developing our hearts, not just our schedules.
I often run into a lack of vision with married couples. They are strangely in their heads, even when they are trying to connect heart to heart. They want solutions, not redemption. They want a road map, not a Guide. For struggling couples, the question is usually less about how to make the little changes in relating that make life pleasant. The question is, “Do you have a heart that intends to present your mate complete in Christ?” Deeper understanding, better behavior and changes in the schedule will definitely improve things. But when it comes down to it, love that comes from Christ saves the world, not one’s love for what someone else is doing. Life is not about being pleased or being pleasing, that’s good, but the greater good is pleasing the Lord and enjoying the food that is eternal. Like Jesus told the woman at the well, “Thanks for the water. But if you asked me, I would give you water from an eternal well.”
What organizes our time? It is a big question when people are making decisions about their lives — and what 20 or 30-something person is not doing that? Are we really going to be like all the people I follow on the freeway who are reading their phone while driving? Even when we are sitting in our prayer chair, we can’t look up from our GPS and be steered by a deeper instinct! Are we more obsessed with taking the perfect next step when we could stride across the landscape, confident that we are eternal? Is time a threat or do we redeem it? The apostle Thomas was troubled that Jesus was going to His father’s house and he did not know the way. Jesus told him: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Thomas may have immediately asked Siri for answers Jesus would not tell him! Even so, the truth remains: knowing Jesus provides us with a deeper sense of direction than GPS or a perfectly managed week.
When I get to talk to people about their time and having more heart than mind, they usually want to know what I am talking about. That’s nice. But when they leave the office they often fall back into their rut; they are steered by some “best practice,” or by the invisible hand, or by whatever their friends are into at the moment. I can relate to that. I have been thinking about how to use my time well for decades. But when it comes down to it, what I really need, beyond better technique, is God speaking something into me that transcends the worries I bring to my day. One day, it was “Keep building.” I’m glad I had devoted time with God in my schedule because that was really helpful!
