What’s your most valuable asset? Your accountant might tell you it’s your home, or a robust retirement fund. Your heart might tell you it’s a family heirloom… something priceless passed down through the generations. And a good reputation and character, certainly, are to be highly valued.
But nothing is more valuable than the time you have today—and the opportunity it presents to do what Christ wants you to do. Houses, diamonds and other “things” can be replaced. Even your reputation, at least to some degree, can be rehabilitated and recovered. But the time you have today, once spent, is gone forever. There is no more fitting cliché than the term “killing time.”
Develop an “asset” mentality
Most people treat time as an endlessly renewable resource, not a finite asset to be nurtured and invested. As a child, you were probably cautioned at one time or another by some grandmotherly figure that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” The phrase may conjure up an image of a mischievous child with a box of matches, but in reality the mere wasting of time—even if it only involves lying on a couch—benefits the Evil One, if it supplants the thing Christ wants you to do. Jesus said you can only serve one of two masters (Matthew 6:24.) How you invest your time today will determine which you are serving.
Planning Pay-Off
“Your life can’t go according to plan,” someone once said, “if you have no plan.” To make the best use of your time today, you must have a strategy and stick to it. Modern technology has helped to create a frenzied culture in which the urgent rules over the important. Here’s ONE THING you should do: before you end the day, review and update your task list for the following day. Determine that you will be guided by your own, God-given priorities, not the distractions that fill your email account overnight. Yes, there will be pop-up emergencies and work-related demands. But make them the exception, not a way of life.
Farm Out Frequently
Perfectionism and micromanagement are surreptitious thieves of time. Do you take on jobs because “no one can do this better than me?” That’s not the right standard. Instead, ask this question: “Which of my tasks absolutely cannot be skipped or delegated?” Make it a regular practice to reevaluate your priorities and farm out duties that can be done by others—even if imperfectly. Focus only on the things that really matter.
You can measure the value of a house and you can make calculations about someone’s character, but only God knows how much time you have. “You do not know what tomorrow will bring,” Scripture warns in James 4:14 ESV, so make your time today count for something!
