We can use many resources as we try to live a life of loving God and loving others. Some of us have money that we can use in various ways. Others have assets, such as houses, cars, or other things to be borrowed, given, or used to love others. Or even things like education, knowledge and experience. However, the one resource we all have at our disposal is time. Time is the one resource we are born with – a good 80 years of it in most cases. It can never be created, bought or saved, it can only be used. Our choice is how we use those 450,000 hours (or whatever we end up being granted) and to what end. As such, it is worthwhile to discuss how time and its use fit into a nomastic framework.
Time is an issue which we don’t explicitly discuss much in Christian contexts. I’m sure we all have heard many sermons discussing money, the love of money, and the importance of holding our finances loosely so as to allow God to use it. But we don’t hear many conversations saying the same of time. Even in the secular world, with the many books written on the issue of time and time management, the focus tends to be on ‘achieving more with the time we have’ rather than ‘using the time we have more wisely’ in this case for the sake of God and others.
When we look at the life of Christ, it is time that was his greatest resource. He used his (relatively limited) time generously and freely – often just being with other people, enjoying and sharing hospitality, walking and conversing with his disciples. It wasn’t all scheduled seminars, programs and workplans.
If the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love others, then it is fair to say that we should consider time our greatest resource to achieve those. Money and effort count, but it is time that is the greatest measure of our priorities. When we look at Scripture we see that when Jesus considers what constitutes a righteous life, time is a critical factor:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (Matthew 25:35-36). Half of these things directly involve the use of time and simply ‘being with’ someone else, with the other three also involving some degree of time along with the effort or physical provision of support. So while there is definitely value in looking at how we spend our life’s hours in regards to such issues as the careers we pursue, and how we use the money we earn during those hours, it’s also equally critical to think about how we use time in simply ‘being with’ those around us.
I believe the greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of time. Spontaneous, unlimited, responsive, flexible time. To be able to say to a friend who is having a difficult time “hey, come round for dinner tonight or coffee tomorrow and just spend some time with us” (as opposed to “hey, I see you’re having a rough patch – how about we catch up for coffee in two weeks on Thursday for forty-five minutes?”) is the greatest gift you can provide. And to do that it is important that we structure our lives to have the freedom and flexibility of time to do so. It risks sounding insincere to say to someone “I’m there for you”, when in regards to time, you can’t be.
Taking a leaf from modern parenting concepts, the concept of ‘quantity time’ is greatly underestimated in our modern world. Anyone with kids can testify that they crave hours upon hours of unfocussed, random, meandering time with their parents, and a neatly scheduled ‘quality time’ block will not meet their needs. So too with friendships – While we’re too ‘mature’ to plead for sleepovers, play dates or weekends together, I think we all have to admit quietly that we love those days and weekends of unlimited time together with the people we love.
And of course, it’s not just about loving others. In regards to loving God time is also critical. This doesn’t just mean that hour of ‘quiet time’ that we all know we should do (and feel bad that we never do) but also simply ensuring that we have time to quietly and thoughtfully reflect and consider. Our decisions would probably be wiser, and our lives more meaningful if we took more time to reflect and think, rather than filling our lives with activity in the hope of finding meaning through busyness.
Of course, structuring ourselves to have this time is challenging, counter-cultural, and counter-intuitive. The modern world has deceived us into thinking that the only way not to ‘waste time’ is to fill it with busy-ness and activities. Look at any Saturday morning to see parents driving kids to activities and programs, scheduling ‘family time’ or ‘couple time’ or ‘alone time’ into our hectic calendars (I even saw the other day an ad by a game manufacturer promoting ‘Wednesday Family Game Night’!) – While none of these are necessarily bad things, they are efforts to fix a problem which we ourselves have created by cramming too much into our lives.
What is interesting however is that, as with all of those sermons we have heard about money, as you slow down to create time and space to intentionally love God and love others, time is given back to you. We kind of know that with money, so we shouldn’t be surprised that it happens with time too…
I am very glad that I married a woman who shared an understanding of the importance of time, especially as it relates to ourselves, our family and our friends. Through our lives we have made conscious, intentional decisions to not let ourselves get too busy with ’stuff’, so that we always had the free time (or at least the flexibility in our time) to offer hospitality and friendship freely and generously to others, be that each other, our children, or our friends. Whenever we have found ourselves not having the time to do justice to these relationships we have known that we are too busy and have re-prioritised accordingly. And we are no worse for it. We have never found ourselves ‘missing out’ on the things we find meaningful to do. Things like gym, jogging, cycling, camping, church, work, and other activities are all still there and in fact with time to spare. Perhaps that is because God miraculously gives us the gift of time, or perhaps we learn what truly is important to us in our use of time and no longer worry about those things which previously kept us very busy but which contributed neither to our lives nor to the love of God or others.
Now clearly, other peoples’ lives will have different expectations and demands, and thus be structured differently – But I sincerely believe that almost all of us could benefit (and in doing so, increase our ability to offer love to God and others) from looking at the issue of time in our lives and how we use it. I’m sure all of us can find ways that we could loosen our time ‘purse strings’, giving more freely to others, and allowing God to take (and give) freely from it
Pray about it – ask God to show us all how we could spend our time more wisely to fulfil those two amazing commandments.
p.s.
In a wonderful bit of synchronicity (or perhaps God just pitching in his thoughts 
this wonderful poem arrived in my inbox today, which I think speaks much more beautifully on the same theme. I guess this is where poetry has the edge on mere words:
SLOW DANCE
Have you ever watched kids on a Merry –go –round
Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?
Ever follow a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading light?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short
The music won’t last.
Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask, ‘How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short
The music won’t last.
Ever told your child,
‘We’ll do it tomorrow”
And in your haste
Not seen his sorrow?
Ever lost touch
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say ‘Hi”
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day
It’s like an unopened gift…
Thrown away.
Life is no race
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.
Interesting article. And all the more authentic as I’ve been on the receiving end of hospitality, friendship and time with your family
Several years ago I decided that to be more spiritually alive, I needed to do less, and it was quite a process working through the priority list of what would stay and what would go – funnily enough, a lot of the religious structure we found ourselves in treated busyness as a badge of honour
In Too Busy not to Pray, there’s a statement that links busyness and worldliness. “The archenemy of spiritual authenticity is busyness, which is closely tied to something the Bible calls worldliness—getting caught up with this society’s agenda, objectives and activities to the neglect of walking with God.”
Busyness. Worldliness. Words with the suffix -ness at the end mean “the state of being.” So the state of being busy is tied to the state of being worldly.
One would think that we—who are called to live radical counter-cultural lives—should know little of being in these states.