How to Optimize Time For God’s Glory
During a recent chat with a dear friend, we began musing about future girl’s trips. Visions of yummy French macaroons danced in my head, and I could practically taste Parisian hot chocolate. Until a sobering comment jolted me back to reality: “The time we have left is too precious to waste on just shopping and eating.” As a Christian in ministry, I could not argue that vital point. In that moment I vowed to discover how to optimize time for God’s glory.
Time and Our Mortality Are Finite
It’s prudent for all of us in these turbulent times to consider how we spend the time God has given us. The rise of global pandemics and cruel political regimes are just two of the grim signs of our declining civilization. Time on earth is the only finite gift God gives His children.
If we choose to work we can make money and increase our financial worth. Farmers can take and cultivate seeds to yield a crop where none existed before. But one thing no man or woman can increase in this our earthly life is their number of days. God alone makes that call.
We read David’s words in Psalm 139 that all of his days were ordained for him and “were written in (God’s book) before one of them came to be.” That’s true for us as well. Because time is even more precious than currency, we are to include it in the list of areas in which we are called to be good stewards before our Lord.
Certainly, devoted kingdom builders want to make our contributions count. But as our planet continues its descent into social, political, economic, and spiritual disrepair, people fall into one of three camps. Weary Christians find themselves waiting for the rapture. Hedonists are busy deep-diving into the YOLO lifestyle. And a handful of ministry compadres dig in like busy bees in God’s hive maximizing the years, weeks, hours, and minutes they have remaining.
Let’s look at those three factions.
The Weary
The weary are, understandably, resigned to the sad state of affairs in our decaying society. They feel powerless to turn the tide on all that is on the decline, be it the moral, civil, political, or spiritual issues of our day. So they cling to their verses of rapture and the New Jerusalem, forgoing any proactive role they might embrace between now and the day Jesus comes again. The weary are indeed told by Jesus to come to Him and He will give them rest (Matthew 11:26.). However, later on in Matthew 28, Jesus tells us to preach to all nations. He reminds us that our time on earth is short. He compels us to reach the unsaved no matter how defeated we are tempted to feel.
The Hedonists
Meanwhile, hedonists live it up. This indulgent approach has become even more acceptable as the fragility of life becomes even more real to everyone. Weight gain skyrocketed during covid, as did relational breakups. YOLO (you only live once) became all too real as people wondered how many days they had left until they succumbed to the inevitable.
As people holed up, isolated and swimming in a sea of emotions, they ate and drank with abandon. Distractions felt comforting to many of us as we tried to find a balance between despair and resisting indulgent revelry. Bucket list game plans replaced to-do lists. And suddenly for many it became easier to give in to YOLO as a permanent mindset.
But because God simply doesn’t figure into the mix when people do as they please, hedonism fails to truly satisfy. Hedonists are either ignorant or apathetic to end of times consequences, or really any consequences. We are told in Titus 2:12 to “deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age…” by the apostle Paul. But the hedonist heeds no such warnings. He lives for the day and closes his eyes to tomorrow.
That’s a dangerous game plan when the afterlife looms in the distance. Because only God knows when the universe He created will cease to exist. Though our individual expiration dates are a mystery to us, they are not to God. James lays it out like this: “…you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” Not the most empowering verse for our egos but certainly quite accurate and indicative of our mortality.
The Busy Bees
Fortunately, there is a superior alternative to the two aforementioned lifestyle approaches. This small but mighty swarm is undeterred by circumstance and tragedy. When all appears to crash down around them, their activity accelerates. They focus not on the obstacles but the scope of the work. They realize they are stronger together and work toward their common goal for the good of the hive.
Busy bees in ministry recognize the temporal nature of mortal life. They take Jesus’s great commission seriously. They commit to doing whatever it takes to carry it out to the best of their ability. That cost of discipleship for them requires overcoming resignation. It requires refocusing on saving souls instead of giving in to despair. That may sound easy to do but if you pore through newspapers and ingest hours of TV as opposed to digging into your Bible, you might end up in a gulch of gloom.
Maximum Effectiveness Requires an Investment in Time Stewardship
To their credit, ministry bees know that their time must be spent as carefully as currency. And that involves a commitment to invest their time as a wise steward. A woman I know who is in her late 80s never lets her age deter her ministry commitment. In her younger days, she witnessed on the ski lift to passengers unable to flee! She spent decades teaching children about Jesus. And when hearing challenges forced her to resign from one ministry commitment, she swiftly shifted gears. With an arsenal of colored chalk, she works the sidewalks writing colorful messages of salvation and redemption and striking up a conversation with anyone who notices her high-minded artwork.
At a time in life when many people devote themselves exclusively to rest and relaxation, my friend continues to dig in her heels. She remains a role model for me in these challenging times. What chalk is the Lord asking me to pick up? And what sidewalk is He sending me to? And what of your chalk and your sidewalk?
Time Stewardship Requires Balance and Advanced Planning
Being the best steward of our time involves responding to two kinds of needs: meeting the needs of people in the moment and meeting the needs of people through efforts that require longer-range planning. For instance, I can choose to work the food bank on the spur of the moment and meet urgent, temporal needs. And I can make longer-range plans to lend my gifts and talents to short-term mission trips that require investments and longer-range planning. Both are important efforts in furthering God’s kingdom and represent wise uses of my time and energy
Will You Set an Intention to Optimize Your Time For His Glory?
These sacrifices don’t necessarily come naturally to me. I like sailing around on the ocean and lounging in a beach chair as much as any hedonist. But instead of making it a lifestyle, I choose it as an occasional diversion. I’m paying attention to Paul’s wise words in Ephesians 5:16-17 to “make the best use of…time,” and to what he says in Colossians 4:5-6: “Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
Join me in discerning four of the five W’s of time stewardship: discerning who we need to witness to, what we need to be saying, when we need to be saying it, and where we need to say it. We already know why. Jesus commanded it us to increase His heavenly kingdom and we are to respond in fervent love and unabashed obedience. Let’s partner with God to make all our days count this side of eternity.
Join Christian encourager/blogger/author Cindy LaFavre Yorks as she sojourns alongside you in your faith walk. Partner with her as she shares her travel tips for navigating life’s most challenging detours. Through personal storytelling and Bible application, Cindy cheers you on as you raise your white flag and deepen your trust in Him to develop an unshakeable faith to help you go the distance.
