What is the most valuable thing you possess? I think there is a good argument to be made that it is your time. We all have the same amount of time, yet feel we can't get enough and that we need more. But maybe the problem isn't that we need more time, maybe it's how we are choosing to spend it. Well...God is very interested in how we choose to spend our time. We must learn how valuable it is, and use it wisely and not foolishly. We also must make sure that the things we spend our time doing align with the will of God, and not just our own.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
What is the most valuable thing you possess? I think there is a good argument to be made that it is your time. We all have the same amount of time, yet feel we can't get enough and that we need more. But maybe the problem isn't that we need more time, maybe it's how we are choosing to spend it. Well...God is very interested in how we choose to spend our time. We must learn how valuable it is, and use it wisely and not foolishly. We also must make sure that the things we spend our time doing align with the will of God, and not just our own.
#SetYourMindAbovePodcast
Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! I’m your host BJ Sipe – I’m a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. In this podcast we take everyday, ordinary events and explore how they can teach us extraordinary, eternal truths. I’m so glad that you joined me for this episode. Now, let’s open up our minds, our hearts, and our Bible’s together.
What is the most valuable thing that you possess? That answer is probably a little different for everyone isn’t it? Speaking merely monetarily, perhaps for a lot of people their answer would be that their home is their most valuable possession. Maybe for others it’s a super car that they worked their whole lives to be able to afford and drive in their retirement. Or maybe when you hear that question, you don’t think about value from a financial standpoint, but an emotional one. So when you heard that question, maybe an old trinket that belonged to someone that you loved who has passed on comes to your mind. It could be a simple as an old teddy bear or a blanket, things that you have a strong emotional connection to for whatever reason. However, I would argue that there is a case to be made that the most valuable thing that you possess is exactly the same for each person, myself included. And that thing is time. As the old expression goes, you cannot beg, steal, borrow or make time. Every single one of us gets 24 hour each day to accomplish the things we want or need to do, no more and no less. And yet, have you ever found yourself overwhelmed, overcommitted and underperforming in most areas of your life? You feel stretched thin in your marriage, your work, your finances, all of it. When you get to that place, maybe you’re just as guilty as I am, because somehow we think the solution lies in wishing for something impossible – “I wish I just had more time.” How many times have you ever said that? “If I only had a little more time, it would solve everything.” Well, maybe the amount of time that we are given isn’t exactly the problem, what if the problems is how we are actually spending that time? I recently picked up a couple dozen new books for me to work through for the rest of the year, and the first one that I decided to read through is entitled Take Back Your Time by Morgan Tyree. I am already almost halfway through the book, and I’ve got to tell you that I have found it extraordinarily providential in a lot of ways. She begins her book by talking about the fact that we need to “declutter” our life. That all of us accumulate clutter, not just material things that we need to manage and take up our time, but emotional and mental clutter as well. We are overwhelmed, buried by our stuff and our commitments that we feel like we’re drowning and can’t tread water. Our lives become out of balance, and we are left trying to figure out what to do or where to even start to get things back on track. As we have discussed before, everything that you say yes to you say no to something else, and what we end up saying no to in the end are all the wrong things. Can you relate to this? What exactly are we to do? I want to share a perspective that Morgan Tyree shares in the second chapter of her book, and it’s what sparked some self-reflection in my life that I want to share with you today. She wrote, “While it’s important to organize to maximize your time, it is just as vital to know what your purposes and priorities are. Without a clear understanding of your purposes in your current season, you will have a difficult time knowing how to prioritize your time.” (Take Back Your Time, pp. 34) As I contemplated this, I started to take a mental inventory of how many different things I try to accomplish or spend my time doing. As I did this, I came to the realization that I waste far too much of my time on wrong choices that are not in and of themselves wrong, but that don’t align with my primary purposes, priorities, or responsibilities in my life. I’ve been stretched thin recently, overwhelmed, and wishing that I had more time. But that’s not the problem – the problem is how I’ve been spending it. I need to do some pruning in my life, and make sure the way I’m actually spending my time is investing in the most important things, not simply wasting it.
As we stated, every single one of us has the same amount of time as the next individual – 24 hours in a day. This is the way that God designed this world. As such, it shouldn’t surprise us that God has certain expectations of the way that we choose to spend our time. I want to share three applications for us to think about from Scripture today. The first is found in Psalm 90:12, where the psalmist writes, “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.” The very first lesson that we need to remember is simply this: your time is valuable. We really don’t have a lot of time here on this earth, and it seems that the older you get the faster time goes by. In fact, we’re not even promised tomorrow, the very next 24 hours might be the very last that you get. It’s when we don’t think in this way that we can be frivolous with our time, wasting away hours doing things that do not contribute an ounce to the things that are most important in our lives – our faith, our family, our work, etc. A study conducted by Statista on February 14, 2022 indicated that the average American adult spends on average three hours a day watching television. Three hours of out 24, and if you sleep for 8, that means we spend 20% of our waking hours doing something that accomplishes nothing every day. Is the problem really that we need more time, or is the problem that we waste it? God wants us to use wisdom with the way we use our time, and that is our second point. In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul says “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” How exactly does God want us to spend our time? This text indicates that our understanding of the will of the Lord should help us to determine how we will spend it. As a disciple of Jesus, there are things that God expects me to spend my time doing. I should be spending time in prayer and in study of his word. I should be spending my time leading my family and teaching my children. I should be spending my time working hard for my family, and working hard in order to give back to those in need. And yet for so many of us, these are things we fail to do and chalk it up to the old excuse, “I just don’t have time.” No, the problem is we don’t spend it wisely. We spend our time on the things that we want and desire, but not on the thing that God wants and desires. If there is any lesson that we must come to terms with and quickly in our lives, it’s that our time is not our own, it belongs to God. To use it wisely is to submit how we spend it to his will. This brings us to our final point. We read in 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.” We are so easily distracted by our own desires and passions in this life, and how we spend our time is a reflection of what is actually important to us. But we must remember, so much of what we spend our time on will eventually be completely wasted, because this world and the things of this world will pass away. But if I spend my time dedicating myself to what matters most, the will of the Father, walking in wisdom and being intentional with the things I am doing – we are storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven. When we devote our time to things above, we are investing it. But let me promise you this, there is no greater return you could ever see than when you invest your time into God. May God give us wisdom to cut out what is wasting our time, and spend it each day where it belongs.
Thank you for tuning in to today’s episode, and I would invite you back Tuesdays-Fridays for a brand-new episode each day. If you haven’t already, be sure to find us on Facebook for occasional announcements and special video sessions. If you have benefited from this podcast, please if you’re able be sure to share it with someone else that you think could benefit from it as well. Until next time, know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each & every day set our minds above.