It's About Time (Part 3)

"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish hours! Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my days so wretchedly into small portions." Unknown Poet, 200 BC

In his book, Margin, Richard Swenson noted that nearly every study on the subject of family reveals that stress produced by time pressures are at, or near, the top of the list. The average time that a husband and wife spend in meaningful conversation each day is four minutes. Parent-to-child quality time is somewhere between 37 seconds and five minutes a day depending on the study.

Our mismanagement of time is killing our relationships. Busyness destroys relationships. We allow our busyness and lack of time to be a point of pride. It boosts our ego to appear busy. It's an expectation and status symbol. It makes us feel important to say we don't have time. When someone asks us how we are doing, we love to respond with, "I'm busy."

How do you know if you're too busy? Gordon MacDonald gives these symptoms of disorganization in his classic book, Ordering Your Private World. (See link below right.) You don't have to have all 9 of these symptoms. One is enough to let you know to slow down.

1. Clutter
2. Condition of your car
3. Self-esteem diminished
4. Series of forgotten appointments, messages, & deadlines
5. Invest energies in unproductive tasks
6. Feel poorly about work
7. Rarely enjoy intimacy with God
8. Quality of personal relationships reveals it
9. Don't like ourselves, our jobs, or much else about our worlds

God never intended for us to be oppressed, depressed, and stressed about our busy lives. He never intended for time to dictate our every move and mood. Jesus moved through life deliberately but was never in a hurry. Crowds thronged around him. The sick wanted to be healed. His followers wanted to be taught. When people came to him for help he gave them the impression that no one else was more important than them.

The secret to Jesus' effectiveness was that he knew that God ordered his footsteps and he saw every appointment or interruption as a divine appointment. The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives (Psalm 37:23, NLT).

Are you on the road to a purposeful life or a purposeless life? Here's the progression to a purposeless life:

A Crowded life = "I'm busy."
Busyness = "I'm tired."
Fatigue = "I'm grumpy."
Apathy = "I don't care."
Purposelessness = "I hate my life."

Give thought to your life. Be careful how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of your time (Ephesians 5:15,16). Determine to take a step each day toward purposeful living. Most worthwhile achievements are the result of many little things done in a single direction. It's also been said this way: "Inch by inch, anything's a cinch!"