Ahoy, Time Guardians,
Yesterday, we learned how to aim our ‘how’ with a bow of humility when plotting our plans. Today, we’re setting our sights on the ‘what’ of time management. What targets are we marking in our smart planners, and how do our Google Calendar entries sync up with God’s master plan?
We discussed how we sometimes shoot our plans out with an arrow of arrogance. But have you noticed the targets we’re aiming for in our calendars? Our trainer James shines a spotlight on our ambitions: “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit“ (James 4:13). Profits, promotions, and power-plays. Ring any bells?
Now, grip your planners tight, here comes the twist. God isn’t anti-planning or anti-profit. But He does take issue with plans that don’t recognize His sovereignty over our lives and don’t leave room for His priorities.
James shoots straight when he says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). Translation: if we know God, we should know the right targets to aim for. No excuses. Throwing your hands up and saying, “Well, we have no control whatsoever, so why bother planning?” is nothing but a smokescreen for the sin of laziness. And declaring, “My schedule’s jam-packed” because we’ve overloaded our calendar with our ambitions and left no room for God, His people, and “the good [we] ought to do”… well, that’s way off target.
As Time Guardians, we’re not just entrusted with time for ourselves, but for God’s purposes too. This isn’t about slotting in a quick devotion during our coffee break or a hurried prayer while the microwave beeps. It’s about making God, His people, and His commands the bullseye of our everyday life. Because when we sideline God in our calendar, we’re essentially pushing the very purpose of our existence to the edge of the dartboard. Ouch!
So, fellow Time Guardians, let’s scrutinize our calendars. Are they brimming with our personal ambitions? Or do they show space for the right targets – space for God, His people, and His commands? Don’t just prioritize your schedule, but schedule your priority!
As we continue to guard our time, let’s contemplate this: Is there space in your schedule for “the good that you ought to do”? How can you create more room in your daily life for God, His people, and His commands?
Before the pandemic, I used to see 4 patients/hour at the clinic. God showed me that He often works in the unscheduled interruptions of my day-yet I had no margin for unscheduled interruptions.
For the past 3 years, I’ve decreased to seeing 3 patients/hour (with a hit in practice revenue, too) but I can spend more time with each patient, more time to pray with patients, and my staff doesn’t feel rushed, either.
Scheduljng God’s priorities is one way to create more space in your life for His priorities (and lo-and behold, our priorities start to mirror His)!
I believe there is always more space/time for “the good we ought to do”. Like I was saying yesterday, I believe that prioritizing godly endeavors helps with the idea of doing “the good we ought to do”. I think where we can take it to the next level and something that I definitely have been feeling led to do is to pray for direction and leading from God as to what these things that we ought to be doing are. Sometimes I can be too fixed on what I think God wants me to do instead of seeking direction from Him.
Truth is often times I don’t really think about this or realize this because either selfishness and laziness clouds my mind and my schedule. I am grateful for today’s reading as this is such a great reminder to running my own will and let’s me put in some work even if it’s baby steps. So I pray oh God with a humble heart continue to guide me to do your will on how I can be of service. I pray that I will continue my day and into the weekend with positivity, love, and prayer. I pray that even with a busy schedule I surrender to you God so I may have clear eyes to share your love with those I encounter. Amen ?? Have a great day everyone ❤️
“How can you create more space in your daily life for God, His people, and His commands?” Our daily lives only consist of 24 hours so I can’t just create time for God. It’s like freeing up space in your phone or computer to make room for new apps or large files, you need to delete whatever is currently there. I mean, you can also buy an external storage disk so probably bad analogy but our 24/7 lives are set in stone. In the case of the schedule of my daily life, that means taking away time from my more frivilous things, like social media or whatever me-time I like to waste on myself. Which is fair because, like I said, we have a total of 24 hours in a day and that’s a lot of time. And if I were to break it down for myself, setting aside time to sleep (6-8 hours) and time for work (8-10 hours) and time for chores (2-4 hours) I’m still left with at least 2 hours to dedicate to God and myself. Right now I’ve been setting aside time, at least 15 minutes or so, to focus on God and doing these devotions to meditate. But I’ve been thinking of my answer yesterday and applying it to my daily life by doing the Star Trek captain’s log thing with God during any downtime between activities. What I mean is that any moment where I can be alone with my thoughts as I move from one thing to another, like commuting for example, I can treat it like how Captain Picard does his captain’s log at the start of every episode and keep God up to date on what’s going on in life at the moment. Like I spoke about in yesterday’s devotion, this would be me keeping God in the loop and making Him more a part of my life.
I used to think of a plan to help people I’ve seen in difficult situations in my life. However, due to laziness, selfishness, or sometimes being too focused on my own affairs, I forgot to take action on those plans. I kept telling myself that I would start working on my plan tomorrow or next week. Today’s reading reminded me that I should take real actions instead of just having thoughts. I pray that God be with me and give me strength to work on my plans so that I can help people around me.