My mum must have been an impressive woman when I was born. I reckon she gave birth to me as she ran because I find it hard to slow down. As I recovered from my throat surgery last month I felt that there was too much to do to stop.
But the more I look at life I realise I did not get the problem from my mum, but rather it is a problem that our whole society has. It is a bit like a big disease. The question is did I give it to you or did you give it to me?
Modern society seems to operate at full speed. People race from one thing to the next and our ‘technology’ has not given us ‘more time with less on’ but rather the same time filled up with more and more things. We often lament how much time flies and we wonder where it has gone.
But time does not fly… we do. Time has not ‘got shorter’ it is basically working at the same rate it has done since creation. So why are we so busy? I reckon it has a lot to do with our search for what life is all about and how to live life to the fullest. Sadly I reckon our society is looking for the answer in the wrong place, see John 10:10.
Can I also suggest that ‘time is not lost’ but ‘we are’? We waste it, we kill it and we cram it so full of activity that there is no time left for important things in life. Often as Christians we run after the same things as those who do not know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
So what is really important? I was thinking of giving you a list but there is no real way to do this justice in the space we have available and each of us have different things that would be on the list. I can however give you what needs to be at the top of your list – Rev 4:11. “You are worthy our Lord and God to receive glory and honour and praise, for you created all things and by your will they were created and have their being”.
I wonder if you have ever sat down and done the hard yards of working out how the rest of this list should look in your circumstances. As you write your list your next priority must be worked out in a way that maintains the integrity of those priorities above it. You could then write a list of where your time is actually invested and then compare the two lists. It might help you work out where all your time goes and whether your business is really all that important.
Time will tick by at basically the same rate it has always done but if we set the right priorities for how we use the time God has given us then we will truly ‘live life to the fullest’ and even better, some of what we do will last for all eternity.