It’s not hard for us to imagine that pastors and church planters are called by God. This is clear to us throughout Scripture. So when we come across the first verse in Romans, where Paul says he was “called to be an apostle” (ESV), we have no problem with this.

But what about the rest of us?

What about a stay-at-home mom with two kids? What about an auto mechanic? How about a real estate agent and a business owner? Has God called them?

What about you? Are you aware of being called by God to a particular task?

Theology of Work

Disagreements over a “theology of work” are common throughout church history. In fact (I was just told) the Middle Ages was marked by a stiff distinction between sacred and secular work. Pastors and church leaders were considered called; laborers were not so called. One is sacred; one is secular.

Then along came a Reformation.

Not only did the Reformers make a giant stride by viewing “secular” work as a calling from God, they took a second step and broadened this calling to include not only work but also vocation.

Leland Ryken writes in his book Redeeming the Time (Baker, 1995), “The early Protestants rightly conceived of our callings as being much broader than our job. All of our roles in life are callings. Being a spouse, a parent, a church member, a neighbor, and a Christian are all callings” (p. 151).

By this, the Reformers introduced an understanding of God’s sovereignty that included all of life—every vocation, every detail, every moment.

Today it appears that many Christians aren’t clear on their work as calling. Christians are normally clear that we should live out the Christian ethic in the workplace. But the Reformers were calling for something bigger.

Ryken writes:

Most Christians believe they can be a Christian at work. To do so involves being a diligent worker, being honest in one’s dealings with an employer, and witnessing to fellow workers. But this still leaves the work itself untouched by one’s Christian faith. The original Protestants were right in going beyond this and claiming that the work itself is a spiritual issue and a means of glorifying God. We can be Christian not only in our work but through our work if we view our work as an obedient response to God’s calling. (p. 148)

This perspective will transform your attitude as you proceed to work, wait in traffic, and arrive to work for yet another day!

Determining Roles

But how can I be certain of my own calling? How can I know I am in the right job? Am I in the proper career path? What about where God wants me in the future? How do I determine God’s intended vocation(s) for my life?

In his book The Spirituality of the Cross (Concordia, 1999), Gene Veith provides two insightful questions.

First, where has God placed me?

How do we know our vocation? Strictly speaking—and contrary to the way we pressure young people to “decide” what they are going to do when they grow up—a vocation is not something we choose for ourselves. Rather, it is given by God, who “calls” us to a particular work or station. God gives each individual unique talents, skills, and inclinations. He also puts each individual in a unique set of external circumstances, which are understood as having been providentially arranged by God. Since vocation is not self-chosen, it can be known too through the actions of others. Getting offered a job, being elected to an office, finding someone who wants to marry you, are all clues to vocation…

Perhaps later, another vocation will present itself. But vocation is to be found not simply in future career decisions, but in the here and now. Nor can a person use the excuse of “not having a vocation for marriage” for getting a divorce, or claim “not having a vocation for parenthood” as a way to dump childrearing responsibilities. If you are married, that’s your vocation. If you have children, they are your vocation. (p. 80)

Second, where am I positioned to serve others?

The purpose of one’s vocation, whatever it might be, is serving others. It has to do with fulfilling Christ’s injunction to love one’s neighbor…Our relationship to God is not determined by our good works (since those with a sinful nature can never have enough of them to earn anything before God)—what we need rather, is forgiveness for our sins and the perfect good works of Jesus Christ. But our relationship to our neighbors is determined by our good works, which themselves are only made possible by God working through us. (pp. 77, 78)

Essentially, your vocation is to be found in the place you occupy in the present. A person stuck in a dead-end job may have higher ambitions, but for the moment, that job, however humble, is his vocation. Flipping hamburgers, cleaning hotel rooms, emptying bedpans all have dignity as vocations, spheres of expressing love of neighbor through selfless service, in which God is masked. (p. 80)

It may be that our vocation is not clear because we have not started with these two questions.

• Where has God placed me?
• Where am I positioned to serve others?

Take a moment to look down at your feet. Go ahead, look. For most of us, our feet are currently resting within the geographic circle of God’s calling on our lives. In the future God may call you outside that circle. But that is for another time.

I fear too many Christians are so distracted by thoughts of the future that they cannot discern with clarity how God has called them to serve in their present vocations. Though they show up for work each day, they don’t work with passion and joy each day.

Conclusion

As you ask yourself these questions, pray that God will help his specific call on your life become clear. Look down, and write down what you discover.
    
Keep the list handy, because next time we will look at that list and get into the specifics.

Currently Amazon.com lists 90,864 books under the topic of “time management.” Titles range from Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen, a helpful book I recommend, to Time Management for Dummies, a book I have not read, although it appears I represent the target audience.

“Time management” books are hot and it’s obvious why—we all want to discover some previously unknown secret that will enable us to become more productive. Yet in this series we have discovered that getting more things done does not mean we are getting the right things done.

Or to put this in a little triad: busyness does not mean I am diligent; busyness does not mean I am faithful; busyness does not mean I am fruitful.

In the past several posts in this series, we looked at procrastination: putting off until the last moment tasks that are important (and presumably most difficult), and instead devoting ourselves to what is easy and urgent, but not as important.

My busyness may be procrastination in disguise.

But today we transition in this series from discussing the hindrances to biblical productivity (procrastination, laziness, and the tendencies of the sluggard) to looking at how we can effectively plan and prioritize.

From my study of this topic and my observation of those I admire (and desire to emulate), it appears to me that being faithful, productive, and fruitful for the glory of God requires that I accomplish three things:

1. define my present God-given roles,
2. determine specific, theologically informed goals, and
3. transfer these goals into my schedule.

Over the next several posts we will develop these three in some detail.

But you may be thinking to yourself, why go through the trouble of determining these roles, creating goals, and fitting all this into my schedule? Why not take life as it comes?

Perhaps you dislike—or even despise—all things related to planning. Perhaps you, like me, can identify with my friend Michael McKinley when he recently wrote: “I would rather stick a fork in my eye than sit in a planning meeting.” Mike has painfully and creatively captured my tendency to postpone planning, and if possible, avoid planning altogether. But while I think of myself as an all-about-the-moment guy, my avoidance of planning is to the detriment of my schedule and (more importantly) to the detriment of my service to my family and church.

Here’s why.

The problem for those of us with this fork-in-the-eye approach to planning is that during each day the most urgent requests will compete with and distract from the most important goals and priorities of our lives. Each day the number of requests we receive normally outnumber the time allotted for the day. My experience confirms that if I fail to attack my week with theologically informed planning, my week attacks me with an onslaught of the urgent. And I end up devoting more time to the urgent than the important.

And at the end of the week there is a low-grade guilt and dissatisfaction in my soul, because I’ve neglected to do the truly important stuff. I want to have as few weeks like this as possible in whatever time remains for me to serve the Savior. I’m thinking you do as well.

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Two or three times each year I retrieve a collection of articles in a folder labeled “Time Management.” Among the articles I review is one titled “Time Well Spent: Right Now Counts Forever,” written by one of my heroes in the faith, Dr. R.C. Sproul.

The article first appeared in Tabletalk magazine several years ago (September 1997, pp. 4–7). And if you could see my copy of the article, you would notice that it’s peppered with years of highlights, underlines, and check marks.

I’m thankful Dr. Sproul wrote this article. And today I offer to you the essential substance of the article as we continue our series on biblical productivity.

It’s worth your time.

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Time Well Spent (excerpt)
By R.C. Sproul

Time is the great leveler. It is one resource that is allocated in absolute egalitarian terms. Every living person has the same number of hours to use in every day. Busy people are not given a special bonus added on to the hours of the day. The clock plays no favorites.

We all have an equal measure of time in every day. Where we differ from one another is in how we redeem the time allotted. When something is redeemed it is rescued or purchased from some negative condition. The basic negative condition we are concerned with is the condition of waste. To waste time is to spend it on that which has little or no value.

I am a time waster. When I think of the time I have wasted over the course of my life, I am hounded by remorse. This guilt is not a false one fostered by an overactive work ethic. The guilt is real because the time I have wasted is real time.

The late Vince Lombardi introduced the adage, “I never lost a game, I just ran out of time.” This explanation points to one of the most dramatic elements of sports—the race against the clock. The team that is most productive in the allotted time is the team that wins the game. Of course, in sports, unlike life, there are provisions for calling time-out. The clock in a sports contest can be temporarily halted. But in real life there are no timeouts…

Given my propensity to waste time, I have learned a few tricks to help me beat the clock. They may be helpful to some of you.

First, I realize that all of my time is God’s time and all of my time is my time by His delegation. God owns me and my time. Yet, He has given me a measure of time over which I am a steward. I can commit that time to work for other people, visit other people, etc. But it is time for which I must give an account.

Second, time can be redeemed by concentration and focus. One of the greatest wastes of time occurs in the human mind. Our hands may be busy but our minds idle. Likewise, our hands may be idle while our minds are busy. Woolgathering, day-dreaming, and indulging in frivolous fantasy are ways in which thoughts may be wasted in real time. To focus our minds on the task at hand—with fierce concentration—makes for productive use of time.

Third, the mind can redeem valuable time taken up by ordinary or mechanical functions. For example, the mechanics of taking a shower are not difficult. In this setting the mind is free for problem solving, creative thinking, or the composition of themes. Many of my messages and lectures are germinated in the shower. When I used to play a lot of golf, I found that the time I had between shots was a great time for composing messages in my mind.

Fourth, use your leisure time for pursuits that are life enriching. Leisure time is often spent on avocations. Reading is a valuable use of time. It enriches life to read outside of your major field or area of expertise. Augustine once advised believers to learn as much as possible about as many things as possible, since all truth is God’s truth. Other avocations that are enriching include the arts. I like to study the piano and I dabble in painting. No one will ever mistake me for a serious musician or an accomplished artist. But these avocations open up the world of beauty to me that enhances my view of God and His manifold perfections. I also enjoy working cross-word puzzles to warm up the little gray cells and to expand my vista of verbal expression.

Fifth, find ways to cheat the “Sand Man.” Several years ago I had an epiphany about time management. Though my life-long pattern had been to stay up late at night I realized that for me, the hours between 9–12 p.m. were not very productive. I reasoned that if I used those hours to sleep I might secure more time for more productive things. Since then my habit has been to retire between 8–9 p.m. when possible and rise at 4 a.m. This has effected a wonderful revolution for my schedule. The early hours of the day are a time free from distractions and interruptions, a marvelous time for study, writing, and prayer….

Sixth, use drive-time for learning. Driving a car is another mechanical function that allows the mind to be alert to more than what is happening on the roadway. The benefits of audio tape can be put to great use during these times. I can listen to lectures and instructional tapes while driving, thereby redeeming the time.

Finally, in most cases a schedule is more liberating than restricting. Working with a schedule helps enormously to organize our use of time. The schedule should be a friend, not an enemy. I find it freeing in that the schedule can include time for leisure, recreation, and avocation. It helps us find the rhythm for a God-glorifying productive life.

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[The article “Time Well Spent: Right Now Counts Forever” was written by Dr. R.C. Sproul and published in Tabletalk magazine (September 1997, pp. 4–7). This excerpt is reprinted by the kind permission of Ligonier Ministries.]

My tendency is to charge into the day intent on getting stuff done, attacking my to-do list motivated by self sufficiency rather than by humble dependence upon the grace of God revealed in the gospel.

And given the active presence of pride and self-sufficiency in my life, it is imperative for me at the outset of each day to devote time to humbling myself before the Lord and acknowledging my dependence upon him for all that awaits me.

As I devote myself to this spiritual discipline, the words of Proverbs 3:5–7 frequently inform my meditation and prayer:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. (ESV)

Alongside my open Bible, I find the exposition of these verses by nineteenth-century pastor Charles Bridges in his commentary on Proverbs to be helpful and insightful. He writes:

Let our confidence be uniform. In all thy ways acknowledge him (Proverbs 3:6). Take one step at a time, every step under divine warrant and direction. Ever plan for yourself in simple dependence on God. It is nothing less than self-idolatry to conceive that we can carry on even the ordinary matters of the day without his counsel.

He loves to be consulted. Therefore take all thy difficulties to be resolved by him. Be in the habit of going to him in the first place—before self-will, self-pleasing, self-wisdom, human friends, convenience, expediency. Before any of these have been consulted go to God at once. Consider no circumstances too clear to need his direction.

In all thy ways, small as well as great; in all thy concerns, personal or relative, temporal or eternal, let him be supreme.
 
-Charles Bridges (1794–1869), from A Commentary on Proverbs (Banner of Truth, 1846/1968) pp. 24–25.

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Related posts in this series:

1. Are You Busy?
2. Confessions of a Busy Procrastinator
3. The Procrastinator Within
4. Just Do It

I tend to procrastinate. So to fight that tendency, I’ve posted the following quote from a nineteenth-century preacher under my computer monitor. I hope these words inspire you to attend diligently to the most important matters each day, by God’s grace.

It reads:

No unwelcome tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till tomorrow. It is only when they are behind us and done, that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing, and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility, and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, go straight up to it, and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it.

-Alexander MacLaren (1826–1910), Scottish preacher

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Related posts in this series:

1. Are You Busy?
2. Confessions of a Busy Procrastinator
3. The Procrastinator Within

If I am busy, I must be productive, right? A busy man is a faithful and fruitful man?

Nope. Busyness is no guarantee of productivity, faithfulness, or fruitfulness.

But why? What distinguishes a fruitfully busy schedule from a non-fruitful busy schedule?

I think it comes down to two important points: understanding our sin and understanding our roles. Today we’ll look at our sin and later we will look more closely at roles).

In the last post we looked at Walter Henegar’s candid account of how he procrastinated in getting to the root of procrastination.

In seminary, Mr. Henegar noticed a three-fold pattern of procrastination in his academic life:

• If it’s not due tomorrow, then I’ll take my time and put off the work.
• If it’s due tomorrow, I’ll start the project, stay up late, and drop all my other priorities.
• Once I’ve finished, I’m entitled to a reward.
  

And then Mr. Henegar enrolled in a seminary course on counseling, where he began to uncover the hidden side of his procrastination. He realized that “my prickly branches of procrastination were being nourished by unseen roots growing deep in the chambers of my heart” (p. 41).

He’s referring here to a diagram called “The Three Trees,” developed by the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF). The diagram, based on Luke 6:43–45, presents the situations of life (illustrated by sun or heat) that reveal the roots of sinfulness or godliness in our lives. These roots reveal what we really want and believe.

Under the heat of life’s circumstances, we sometimes respond in a godly way, revealing healthy roots that lead to fruitfulness (illustrated by a fruitful tree). Or these situations tempt us to respond sinfully, revealing a bad root and a lack of fruit (illustrated by a fruitless tree). The gospel is the centerpiece of the diagram, giving hope to the fruitless (through repentance) and reminding us that all godly fruit is a result of the gospel in our lives.

When he began recognizing the heart issues involved, Mr. Henegar continued through his semester with a closer watch on the roots of sin that nourished his procrastination.

This is how he describes his discovery:

I began to feel like I was really figuring myself out, and it was still early enough in the semester to think I was staying on top of things. I’d notice when I started slipping blatantly into procrastination, and it was easy enough to stop—at first. But soon midterms hit, and everything quickly fell apart. I found myself pulling all-nighters again, and it was back at square one. Ironically, though, I still had to work on an assignment for my counseling class. I reluctantly dove back, this time trying to get at deeper issues. It wasn’t hard to begin naming things.

Pride was surely operating: every time I pulled an all-nighter to finish a job, I was protecting my reputation before my friends and superiors.

Fear of others was closely related. When I had those mild panic attacks, the fear of others’ disapproval was foremost in my head.

Laziness wasn’t the main thing, but it definitely played a part; sometimes I just didn’t want to do anything.

Pleasure-seeking and escapism were big players, too, though I generally confined myself to acceptable thrills like watching movies and binging on Ben & Jerry’s. (p. 42, emphasis mine)

Mr. Henegar did the right thing after this discovery. He repented of his sin. He repented to his wife for the presence and effect of his sin. And he turned to a group of friends from his local church whom he offered “a standing invitation to show me my sin—and to remind me of the gospel” (p. 44).

What Mr. Henegar discovered was the simple truth that underlying our procrastination—putting off the most important duties we are called to accomplish—was not so much a busy schedule but a sinful heart.

The good news for all of us who are procrastinators is this: The gospel addresses these sins, provides forgiveness of sin, and gives us the power to weaken sin and cultivate true diligence. In the gospel we find hope to address the procrastinator within.

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Related posts in this series:

1. Are You Busy?
2. Confessions of a Busy Procrastinator

In the past I thought that as long as I wasn’t idle, I wasn’t lazy. Not true. In fact, my laziness often shows up in the form of busyness.

  And this was the same discovery Walter Henegar made in his life, as he explained in his candid autobiographical article “Putting Off Procrastination” in The Journal of Biblical Counseling (Fall 2001).

“I procrastinate,” he writes. “I’ve been doing it most of my life. If a particular task is even remotely unpleasant, my first and persistent tendency is to put it off. It’s not that I’m lazy; I’m actually very busy. I just wait as long as possible to do the really hard stuff. I always pull it off in the end, but it regularly makes me miserable” (p. 40).

Here is a glimpse into his life:

When I got married, my uncle, who married us, joked about my well-known tendency right in the middle of the ceremony. His sermon was about the necessity of change in marriage, and looking right at me, he said, “One who is a procrastinator…will put that off as long as he can.”

And that’s exactly what I did, though married life made it increasingly more difficult. My designated crunch times now belonged to my wife as well, and I had to push her away to get last-minute work done.…Can’t she just cut me some slack?

She did cut me some slack, but only as much as her chronically ill body would allow. Repeated hospital stays and constant bouts with pain forced her to lean heavily on me to take care of her—and our two children. If marriage is God’s cold chisel for sanctifying us, then children only sharpen the edge. The three of them drove my work responsibilities deeper into my free time and farther into the hours of the night. I slept less and less. I still managed to pull most things off, but the quality of my work suffered, and my list of un-done to-do’s grew. I was continually weary, discouraged, and feeling sorry for myself. A couple of times, in the throes of last-minute working, I even experienced something like panic attacks. I envied my more disciplined friends but saw little hope of becoming like them. (pp. 40–41)

As he began studying his heart, Mr. Henegar discovered that his sin operated from three predictable manifestations of what he calls his “flow chart of if-thens”:

• If my task is not due anytime soon, put it off.
• If the task is due tomorrow, cast aside all other responsibilities and focus on this one task.
• And after accomplishing a large task, take a break and reward yourself.
  

As he continued to study his own heart, he began to understand that although his day was filled with busyness—and even with genuinely good activities—he was procrastinating. “There I was, buzzing diligently around the room, while that thing, the one thing I needed to do most, sat unheeded in the middle of it. I wasn’t just a procrastinator; I was a work-around-er” (p. 41).

Then came the decisive point in his life when he learned more about this procrastinator within.

About two years ago, a counseling class in seminary challenged me to give Scripture a shot at diagnosing my problem and setting a course for change. What captured my imagination was the biblical metaphor of a tree, and the suggestion that my prickly branches of procrastination were being nourished by unseen roots growing deep in the chambers of my heart. A hope even flashed that I might uncover the root, and somehow cut it out once and for all. In retrospect, this second hope was a reflection of my procrastinator’s heart, always looking for a shortcut or a silver bullet. (p. 41)

But there was no shortcut.

Next time we’ll discover how Mr. Henegar confronted the procrastinator within.

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Related post: Are You Busy? (11/12/08) 

 

Lazy? Not me. I’m busy. Up early, up late. My schedule is filled from beginning to end. I love what I do and I love getting stuff done. I attack a daily to-do list with the same intensity I play basketball. Me lazy? I don’t think so!

Or at least I didn’t think so. That is, until I read about the difference between busyness and fruitfulness, and realized just how often my busyness was an expression of laziness, not diligence.

I forget now who first brought these points to my attention. But the realization that I could be simultaneously busy and lazy, that I could be a hectic sluggard, that my busyness was no immunity from laziness, became a life-altering and work-altering insight. What I learned is that:

• Busyness does not mean I am diligent
• Busyness does not mean I am faithful
• Busyness does not mean I am fruitful
  

Recognizing the sin of procrastination, and broadening the definition to include busyness, has made a significant alteration in my life. The sluggard can be busy—busy neglecting the most important work, and busy knocking out a to-do list filled with tasks of secondary importance.

When considering our schedules, we have endless options. But there are a few clear priorities and projects, derived from my God-assigned roles, that should occupy the majority of my time during a given week. And there are a thousand tasks of secondary importance that tempt us to devote a disproportionate amount of time to completing an endless to-do list. And if we are lazy, we will neglect the important for the urgent.

Our Savior understood priorities. Although his public ministry was shorter than one presidential term, within that time he completed all the works give to him by the Father.

The Father evidently called him to heal a limited number of people from disease, raise a limited number of bodies from the dead, and preach a limited number of sermons. As Jesus stared into the cup of God’s wrath, he looked back on his life work as complete because he understood the calling of the Father. He was not called to heal everyone, raise everyone, preach copious sermons, or write volumes of books.

While we must always be extra careful when comparing our responsibilities with Christ’s messianic priorities, in the incarnation he entered into the limitations of human life on this earth.

So join me over the next few days as we discover the root and nature of laziness, so that we might devote ourselves to biblical priorities and join our Savior in one day praying to the Father, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4, ESV).

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The Sovereign Grace Leadership Interview Series podcasts give you an opportunity an opportunity to pull up a chair and listen as Joshua Harris, Jeff Purswell, and C.J. chat over topics dear to pastors. Even non-pastors have found benefit in listening to these recordings.

Today we release the fourth podcast: “The Pastor and His Time.” The discussion begins with the panelists busting on a certain pastor for his susceptibility to time-saving devices (you know who you are). Then it moves into more serious matters as Jeff provides a theology of time and explains how to “redeem time.” From here the podcast covers several subtopics, including the importance of maintaining a disciplined use of time, determining pastoral priorities, how to manage the inevitable schedule interruptions, and what to do with the endless flow of email.

Listen to, or download, the audio here.

How does a pastor best use his time? What priorities should be reflected in his schedule? How do pastors handle inevitable emergencies and other unexpected adjustments to the schedule? And what to do with all the email?

These and other questions were on the table during the latest Sovereign Grace Leadership Interview podcast recording, “The Pastor and His Time.” The recording will be posted here before long.

Though intended for pastors, this series of podcasts has been well received by our other listeners as well. If you have a general interest in reading, determining the well-being of your soul, growing in joy, or redeeming the time, you may find the practical nature of these podcasts useful. You can find a list of them here.

This first transcribed excerpt is from the beginning of the latest podcast. The roundtable among Joshua Harris, Jeff Purswell, and C.J. begins with a scriptural definition of “time.”

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C.J. Mahaney: Jeff, I think the most prudent place to begin would be with a biblical perspective of time. What does Paul mean when he writes, “Redeem the time” or “Make the best use of the time” (Ephesians 5:16, Colossians 4:5)?

Jeff Purswell: I so appreciate that we are able to start there, because I think we are particularly vulnerable in our efficient, time-driven culture to falling into a view of time that is not biblical. You see this even in the way that time management techniques are offered. We can view time as though it has its own metaphysical existence. I know I can view it like time is marching on, time is something I have to conquer, and I am losing time—typically time is defeating me.

This idea of time as a quantity, that there is certain amount of time and no more, can lead to the illusion that the answer then is managing our time better. If I just manage my time better, if I use my time better, then this will answer my problems. To extrapolate on this, by using all my time better, I will have time for all kinds of things. The possibilities will be limitless.

Joshua Harris: And the condemnation is limitless as well.

JP: Exactly.

And this gives rise to time management techniques offered to pastors and church leaders as well that, you know, teach us how to use time more efficiently. And so we use time more efficiently, and then that means we can schedule more, and that means we can do more. The elusive “better use of time” is always out there.

Now, obviously we can use our time more wisely. We can be more efficient. I am sure we would all say there are times where we waste time. So it’s not to eliminate those as helpful aids.

But I think the Bible would call us to view time as any other thing: Time is God’s. He created it. He gives it to us as a gift. He placed us in time, and relates to us in time. And so I think the Bible would push us to place God at the center of our time. He rules it. He gives it. He gives us the responsibilities that we have. Any pastor looking at his to-do list, trusting they are from God, those assignments are to take place in the time that God has given.

And so we talk about “redeeming the time” (Ephesians 5:16, Colossians 4:5). When the Bible speaks of time, it is typically speaking not so much of chronological time—moments ticking away—but often referring to time as opportunities. So the issue is not “use your time better” (although, of course, we can all use our time better and should seek to do so), but there are opportunities God has given us, therefore we steward our lives to make sure we are seizing those opportunities.

If I am not mistaken, the same verb in both of these verses is literally “to buy back the time.” And I think a lot of translations render that well, “making the best use of your time” or “making the most of every opportunity.”

Interesting, when you look at the context of Colossians 4, it is teaching us about relating to non-believers. The days are evil, therefore be ready to share the gospel, be wise towards outsiders, making sure your words are seasoned with grace. And so “using your time” is to use the opportunities God provides to be a witness for the gospel.

In Ephesians 5 it talks about the days are evil, therefore don’t be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is. And so there the use of time is tied to the will of the Lord.

So all of that to say I think the Bible would not want us laboring under this fear that we are going to lose a moment, but rather being alert to the opportunities God gives us in time, and that he has given us time as a gift.

He is sovereign over time and sovereign over our opportunities. So we can approach time, not with a dread of fear, but with faith that there are things God has given us to do and we want to be alert to them.