By Rachel Loe, May 30, 2024
Why do we often find ourselves or others almost bragging about how busy we are? I found myself in this conversation the other day, and I was the culprit. I laid out all the meetings I had that day, the errands I had to run and the tasks to complete at home. In an almost exasperated tone concluded, “There just aren’t enough hours in the day”. I do not know where this cliche phrase originated or who coined it, but the idea runs rampant through our work culture. If you are not stressing about getting everything done, then you must not be doing enough is the unspoken standard. In recent years, this has shifted for the younger generations, but in the workplace, it is still prevalent. So how do we, as kingdom ambassadors, manage our time and deal with the pressure of “accomplishing it all”?
Our time is not our own:
The biggest point to remember and apply is that our time is not our own. Jon Bloom, of Desiring God, writes, “Your body does not belong to you. Do you believe this? I don’t mean doctrinally believe it — if you’re a Christian, you of course believe that “you are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). I mean do you functionally believe this?” This extends to our time management. Are we looking at our days through the lens of a steward managing their loving master’s household? Matthew 25 has the parable of the Talents, in which Jesus describes a master entrusting his servants with varied sums of money while he is gone. Each servant acted and was evaluated on their yields upon their master’s return. This story has many applications, but one of these is that we are accountable to our Lord for how we spend the time He has given us. He cares that we honor Him each day, not just the sum of the days.
Our time is sovereignly limited:
This might be the crux of my frustration personally. Since our time is not our own, it follows that our Lord determines our time (Job 14:5). This is laid out in two main ways: micro and macro. God has determined the daily limitations of our human bodies. He built us to need rest and laid out a rhythm of rest for us when He created the world. On the seventh day, God rested (Genesis 2:2). He did not need to rest from exhaustion but to give His creation a rhythm. God also gave us a rhythm in His creation story of accomplishing a portion each day. He could have spoken a word and formed the universe in that breath. Instead, He chose to create over the course of time. So why do we feel the pressure to accomplish everything in a single day? More on this later.
The macro view of our lives is also limited. In His mercy, God has given us limited days on this earth. Why do I say in His mercy? We are apart from Him in this broken existence after the fall. A mortal life gives us freedom from these broken bodies and hope for an eternal future with Him. The blessing of Christian life is that we have hope after, so while we are here, our time is valuable. The apostle Paul puts it this way in Philippians 1:20-24 (ESV).
As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
So when managing our time, remembering that we are not our own should take the pressure off as we know that we cannot accomplish everything ourselves and point us to our Creator to rely upon. There are enough hours in the day for us to do what our Lord has laid out for us to do.
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