I am lying in the dentist’s chair having root canal treatment. The invasion of a lethal weapon into my mouth, even when frozen up, is an unwelcome guest. Regardless of the drill’s activity, its high-pitched piercing noise causes enough distress. As the drill hits a nerve the anaesthetic missed I flinch with pain. I wonder if the ordeal is ever going to end. Fifteen minutes of surgery seems like eternity. (Be assured, I have been made aware of childbirth.) In another context, 29 years of a happy marriage seems like but a few moments.
Few people these days seem to have time on their hands. “We don’t know how we found time to work,” retirees joke. The economist, John Maynard Keynes, predicted back in the 1930’s that by now, ‘time-pressure’ would all but be eliminated, with most people working just 15 hours per week. That prediction remains a distant dream, but some suggest that the rise of the ‘algorithm’ could change everything.
I muse about when my email inbox was last empty, my to-do list complete. What would ever drive me to believe it essential to check my inbox last thing at night and first thing in the morning? Do I have to reply instantly? I like the little piece of advice from Psalms;
“It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves? (Psalms 127:2 The Message).
We live in the age of the instant and the fast. Instant soup, instant porridge, instant potato, not forgetting ‘ready meals’. Remember Concorde, the supersonic airliner? Was it eventually abandoned, in part, because it took too long to fly across the Atlantic? ‘Business’ now flies between London and New York in less than 90 milliseconds. And yet the powers that be still think it necessary to build a new high speed railway, reducing the UK’s Birmingham to London commute to under 40 minutes.
And then appeared Facebook to consume my time! Why is it that the more I read Facebook seeing others happy and content, the unhappier and unsettled I become?
“How are you doing?” we ask. “Really busy,” comes the reply. Often used myself, am I unintentionally using it as a badge of honour? After all, I’m a pastor. I’m supposed to be busy, expected to be by my overseers, members, and yes, even the Lord! Of course, I would never condone or encourage legalist works righteousness, no, not me, never!
Of my time, one seventh is sacred and set apart to worship Him, when He specifically requests the pleasure of my company. But as my life fully belongs to God, so do the remaining six days. My everyday life can be one of continual worship through His around-the clock presence. In essence, how I manage my time is a signal of what really matters to me. And so I ask myself, “what will happen over those six days, if I daily invite Him to continue to manage my time?”
“ So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)
First Things 1st is the monthly blog of the Stewardship Ministries Department of the Trans-European Division. The purpose is to restore and strengthen the principles of biblical stewardship, leading to a strong, mature, and joyful faith in Christ for those we serve.