Mar 8         How to Best Use Your Time        James 4:13-17; Psalm 90

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!  Well, each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance.  It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. There is no going back.

We are continuing our Lenten series on Stewardship.  Today, I want to look at how we use our time.  All we have in life comes to us from God and we are asked to use and manage God’s good gifts in a way that follows the purposes and plans of God.  One of the greatest gifts we have is time.  But how can we best keep track of this precious gift?

I heard a story about a man who worked at a factory. One of his jobs was to blow the factory whistle at 5:00 to indicate the workday was over. He walked to work each day and passed a jewelry store where a beautiful grandfather clock was displayed in the window. Every morning, he stopped and set his watch to match the time on the grandfather clock. One morning the storeowner was out front sweeping the sidewalk and the factory worker asked him how he kept such accurate time on the grandfather clock. The jeweler said, “Oh, I set it every afternoon when the factory whistle blows at 5:00.”
        Maybe we can find a better way to keep the time.  I want to talk about four things we can do to better use our time for the will of God.  To help you remember, we will use the four letters in the word TIME. 
      The first letter is T and it stands for TREASURE.   In Psalm 90 which we read, we see how quickly time passes away and how we are to treasure time as a valuable commodity.  Have you ever heard the expression, “time is money?” It’s not true. Time is much more valuable than money. “You can make more money but you can’t make more time.” “Time is a resource that is nonrenewable and nontransferable. You cannot store it, slow it down, hold it up, divide it up or give it up. You can’t hoard it up or save it for a rainy day–when it’s lost it’s unrecoverable.  You should treasure time as the most valuable asset you are given in this world.

     The next letter in TIME is I and it stands for INVEST.   Time is like money in that it can be spent and invested.  But it cannot be saved.   In 1973, Jim Croce wrote a hit song that said, “If I could save time in a bottle...” Those are great lyrics, and it would be nice if we could save time, but you can’t.  A few months after Jim Croce wrote that song, in September 1973, he was tragically killed in a plane crash in Louisiana at the age of 30. You can’t save time.   Billy Graham said: “Time is the capital that God has given us to invest. Where are we to invest our time?  People are the stocks in which we are to invest our time.  Some people seem like blue chips, others like penny stocks. Some people seem to us like junk bonds.  But God calls us to invest our time in people whom God loves.”
         Where do you invest your time?   Where you invest your time reveals what is most important to you.  There are 168 hours in each week. The average person will spend about 56 of those hours sleeping, about 24 of those hours in eating and personal hygiene, and about 50 of those hours working or traveling to work. That means there are only about 35 hours a week of “discretionary” time left over. That’s about 5 hours per day. Where are you investing those hours?  If I were to follow you around and observe you for those 5 hours, after about 10 days, I could tell you what is most important in your life or what you have made most important.  Now many of us get selfish with our time.   We say we do not have enough time for the things of God.  But we forget that God has given us our time.  Our time belongs to God. We are to tithe a portion of our time for God just as we are to tithe a portion of our money.   And in reality, we always find time to do what is important to us.  It is just a matter of managing our time.  And that is the letter M.

I said last week that all we have belongs to God and we only MANAGE it.  God gives us our time here on earth and we are to MANAGE that time well to use it for God’s good purposes. 

     Let me show you something.    A time management expert was teaching a seminar for executives. He placed a large, clear open-mouthed jar in front of the group. Next, he put seven or eight large rocks into the jar until it was full. “Is the jar full?” He asked. Everyone nodded. Then he took pebbles and filled up the jar with the small rocks until they reached the rim. “Is the jar full?” By now, they didn’t answer. So, he poured fine sand in. “Is the jar full?” Some nodded. He proceeded to take a pitcher of water and filled up the jar again. “What’s the lesson about time management?” he asked. Hands shot up, and everyone agreed “No matter how busy you are you can always fit more things into your schedule.” “Wrong.” he replied. “The lesson is: unless you put the big rocks in first, they never will fit in. You must figure out what the big rocks are for you.” What are the big rocks in your life? 

Now time management is a hot topic.  But in his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes: “Time management is a misleading concept. You can’t really manage time. You can’t delay it, speed it up, save it or lose it…The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.”   The Bible never really speaks of time management but the Bible does speak of  “redeeming” the time. Paul writes: “See then that you walk with wisdom, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time...” (Ephesians 5:14- 15)  The decisions we make about how we use our time, deciding what is really important in life, will be one of the most important decisions we will ever make. 

 Many of you remember the song, “The Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin. Part of it says,
“My child arrived just the other day.
He came to the world in the usual way.
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay.
He learned to walk while I was away.
He was talking before I knew it, and as he grew
He said, “I’m going to be like you, Dad.
You know I’m going to be like you.”

The final verse says:
I’ve long since retired and my son’s moved away.
I called him up just the other day.
I said, “I’d like to see you, if you don’t mind.”
He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I could find the time.
You see, my new job’s a hassle and the kids have the flu,
But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad.
It’s been real nice talking to you.”
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me,
He’d grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.

Here’s the rest of the story: Harry Chapin’s wife, Sandy, actually wrote the words to that song after their son Josh was born. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. When their son was 7, Harry was performing 200 concerts a year and Sandy asked him when he was going to take some time to be with his son. Harry promised to make some time at the end of the summer. He never made it. In mid-July, a truck hit Harry’s Volkswagen and he was killed.  Harry Chapin was 39 years old.  How are you wisely redeeming your time?

The final letter in TIME is E.  We are to ENJOY our time.  The writer of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament tells us that the best thing we can do is to enjoy life. How can we best enjoy life?  Well, we can only enjoy life in the NOW.   James 4:14 says, “Listen, you who say tomorrow we will go to this or that city, carry on business, make money.  You know not what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is a mist that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.”  You know, there is a place for planning and making decisions about the future.  Proverbs tells us to plan wisely.  But most of the Bible’s words about time are about NOW.  Today is the day.  That is the constant word from God.  We most enjoy our time when we live time in the NOW.  We cannot live in yesterday, even though we waste much time fretting about what has past.  We cannot live in the future even though we use up so much time making our plans.  No.  Enjoyment of time happens as we come into contact more with the NOW.  God speaks to us in the now.  God guides us in the now.  Time to serve and give is now.  Time to be with family is now.  Time to do a good job in our work is now.  Time to complete our chores is now.  Time to love and live and enjoy is now.  There is no other time but now.  Those who want to be the best stewards of the Time given to them by God learn to live in the now.

   This week, I would encourage you to look at your time and see what is important to you or what you have made to be important.  Is that how you want to spend your precious gift of time?  God has given you your time.  Are you giving a portion to God in service to God and to other people?   And are you living in the now.  That is all we really have.  Now.  This time.  Right now.  Amen.