As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“If we can find the opportunity hidden amidst the limitations, we may just look back upon the season ahead as among life’s most meaningful. For that to happen, however, we’ll need to choose it.” - Jedd Medefind
“Lately, hobbies have become a metric of personal success. But their core purpose is to help us pause and praise.” - Christianity Today
There’s a little book in our church book store called “Time and the End of Time.” The cover and the title have attracted my interest, and several times I’ve picked it up to take a look at it. It was written by John Fox in 1676—not to be confused by the John Foxe of Foxe’s The Book of Martyrs.
“As Christians, we often acknowledge Christ’s rule over things like human dignity, marriage, and maybe even our finances, but we often miss how central a Christian view of time is to a truly Christian worldview. Thus, we often find our time hijacked, assumed, taken for granted, killed, wasted, and even forgotten.” - Breakpoint
“Meetings, emergencies, and time with people are a given. But what about preparing messages, planning ahead, and crafting direction? Some leaders have excellent time management skills because they set large blocks of time for that work while others attempt to ‘squeeze that work in’ to their busy schedules.” - Church Leaders
“When the new year began, I decided to try an experiment. I wanted to see how much time I could reclaim by limiting time-draining activities and by infusing otherwise “dead time” with something valuable.” Encouraging Words
I love calendars, especially the twelve month variety with a beautiful picture on each page. They usually arrive in December, and I enjoy selecting the ones I will use during the coming year. On the first of January, I hang two new calendars, one in my study and another in my shop, while Marti does the same in the kitchen and at her desk. Of course, we must discard the old calendars, but I can never do so without a moment of reflection. Twelve pages of numbers tossed into heaps of household trash, but what momentous events those rumpled pages represent. Days of our lives now gone, like fallen leaves of autumn.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey (2012), the average working person between the ages of 25-54 spends 2.5 hours per workday in leisure and sports (is Facebook a sport?).
That’s 12.5 hours per week, about 50 hours per month, and roughly 600 hours per year. And remember—that does not include weekends! While we certainly need rest and recharging for the many tasks God provides, perhaps we can ask ourselves what we are doing with that 600 hours per year.
Consider some of these estimates:
I’m sure that every single reader of Sharper Iron has time management issues of some kind. We are all busy—and many are busy beyond juggling family, work, and ministry while trying to nurture one’s own physical and spiritual health and well-being. We are stressed, overwhelmed, and downright cranky.
“Despite my wife’s pleas for help, I was off to rescue another family, not aware that mine needed rescuing. That’s when she picked up the kids and gathered her things.” Read more …
Discussion