TOO BUSY FOR OUR OWN GOOD!

Preached 1/20/02

Series: Time Stewardship

Preached by Dr. Paul R. Smith

West Side Presbyterian Church

Seattle, WA

Contact: office@wspc.org

TOO BUSY FOR OUR OWN GOOD!

[Ephesians 5:8-20]

Prayer for Illumination - Thank you, Lord, for your Word. I thank you that your light has shown upon this Word for 2000 years. You have revealed truth. You have inspired us to consider our lives, to consider what it means to walk in the light, and I pray that in a world that is often clouded by great darkness we might indeed be children of the light who reflect the light of Jesus Christ. Now help us to consider the opportunities we face and how we might take advantage of them to be the people you have called us to be. Grant the words that I speak life from your Spirit. Grant to our hearts inspiration, counsel and challenge. May we be shaped in the way that you would desire to reflect you, for we pray it in Jesus’ name, AMEN.

Message

How many of you would be willing to agree that "busy" is a 4-letter word? I’m afraid I say it all the time. Someone asks, "Hey, how have you been?” And I say, "BUSY!" But actually I would like to ban that word from our conversation.

As a matter of fact I've come to the conclusion that most of us are too busy to accomplish anything. We are busy all the time, but what are we accomplishing? It is a question worth asking ourselves. The word "busy," by the way, is only used once in the entire Bible. That ought to be significant in itself in a several thousand page book, and where it is used is a perfect illustration of what we are talking about. In 1 Kings 20 a man has been given a significant task to guard a prisoner with his life. But as he explains to the king when he had failed in that task, "As your servant was busy here and there, he was gone." The king is utterly unimpressed and responds, "[You were charged with the task of guarding this prisoner with your life] so shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it." He had decided it with his "busyness." He had failed at his task, his important priority. Now as the story goes on (if you are interested), it turns out to be the king himself who had failed at the task with which he had been entrusted–the man giving this story was a prophet. But the central message for all of us is busyness is never an excuse for failing at the central task with which we have been entrusted. Now if that is the only thing you hear today, that would be worth the price of admission. (It was free, wasn’t it? No one was taking tickets at the door?)

But we do it all the time, don't we. We are busy. We are busy talking on the phone, checking our email, paying the bills, running errands, chauffeuring the family, shopping for the best bargains, running here and there, commuting to work, arranging and rearranging things, chatting with friends, watching TV, tinkering with appliances, reading the paper, doing a little homework, picking up around the house, trimming our nails, having a cup of coffee, browsing through a magazine, scanning the classified ads, doing the laundry, going out to eat, . . . (Does that sound like your schedule? How do you get anything done?) “busy here and there” with good and necessary things, and we fail at the central task with which we have been entrusted.

Now don't get me wrong. This is not simply resolved. Many, perhaps most of those things really do need to be done. Plus we have our job, and our children, and our parents, and a thousand other seemingly important things. We're so busy--we just need a little more time, that's all. If we only had a few extra hours, we could catch up. Well, maybe a few extra days, or a few extra weeks–but we could catch up if we had some extra time.

There was an ad on TV a few years back that I loved suggesting that we could "buy time." (Remember? "I've been waiting for an hour!" "Oh, I'm sorry. How long have you been waiting?") However long he had been waiting for that hour, he hadn’t been able to buy it! It’s appealing to us. It would be wonderful to get an extra hour or an extra day, some spare time. We just don’t know how we are going to get a hold of it. Of course we don’t really believe we would be able to purchase a couple of extra hours, though it would be nice, but I’m afraid wishful thinking about it probably keeps us from facing a very significant truth.

Of course, the thought of buying time is meaningless. What would more time look like? It would look like nothing because it is no “thing.” Now I know we could get into some very involved philosophical and even scientific discussions about time, which none of us really understands, but for all practical purposes time is simply a measurement. It is the dimension in which things happen, just as space is the dimension within which things exist. As such, they cannot be altered. Time is an artificial method of measuring the progress of what is happening, but as it has no substance itself, you cannot add to it or take away from it. If the electrons in a quartz crystal pulse 10 million times in what we call a second, that tells us something about quartz, which is a substance, but it does not tell us anything about time. We have simply said that we will arbitrarily label those 10 million pulses "One Second." Meanwhile, we can do whatever we want while that quartz is pulsing, or while the world is spinning, or however else we measure time. It does not affect us at all. We may sit and stare into space, we may read a book, we may do the dishes, we may take a walk, but the pulsing of that quartz, or the spinning of the globe, does not make a difference. What we do really has nothing to do with time. It has only to do with us, and what we choose to occupy ourselves. Time is only a reference point from which we measure our accomplishments, which is why we struggle with it, because we are not accomplishing what we would like. But that is the issue. The question is not how much time we have. The question is, what are we accomplishing and how might we do a better job of it?

It is a very important distinction because we constantly make the excuse that we do not have enough time when the real issue is that we are not productive, or not as productive as we would like to be. We need, therefore, to begin by throwing away our excuses about time--they are smoke screens that keep us from the real issue. We need to face the real issue of our own productivity, our effectiveness at what we do.

Perhaps it would be helpful to translate our common excuses about time into more realistic language. We say, "The time just got away from me." But of course time doesn't go anywhere. What we mean, and what is more difficult to face, is that we planned so poorly that we cannot complete our task before we are called to account for it. Time didn't go anywhere, but we have to plan our tasks so we are ready when the day of accounting comes. That’s the hard part.

We say, "Time flies." But time is a constant. We are only admitting that we have not accomplished the results expected since the last reference point in time.

We speak of "the ravages of time," or say, "time will take care of it." But time does not act on anything. Other physical forces do. Rocks wear down in the wind and rain, stars use up their fuel and grow dim, men and women age and empires decay because the physical laws of the universe act upon them. But the issue is the physics of the universe, not time. Time is only the dimension in which those things take place.

We say, "I don't have the time for that," but of course we do. We have the same amount of time as those who do it. The truth is we do not choose to spend our efforts on that particular proposal, and that may be good. We must choose what is truly important for us.

The value of exposing these simple myths about time is that we eventually begin to see that the issue is not, nor has it ever been, time. The issue is what we ourselves choose to do with our lives, and that is what I wish to focus upon this morning.

It is important to note that time is equally distributed. We have the same amount of time available each day as everyone else. The president does not have any more hours in his day than your barista does. We have the same number of hours each day as do Colin Powell, Martha Stewart, Stephen Hawking, Tom Clancy, and anyone else you want to name. The question is, what do we do with our time? We know something about what they do with theirs.

Perhaps we could better visualize what we are called to do if we changed the metaphor. Space, too, is a dimension much like time. We measure it off in inches, feet, miles, and light years, just as we measure time in minutes, hours, days, and years. But there is no end to either. There may be an end to the material universe but not to space.

For the sake of our analogy, let us suppose that every person on earth were given an equal strip of garden to care for each day. Each may do with it what they please, but they may not enlarge or shrink the garden plot. The differences among the gardens will grow not from how large a garden is, which is irrelevant, but from how the gardener cares for his particular plot. He may ignore it completely. He may scatter seeds about the garden haphazardly. Or he may carefully lay out a beautiful design of flowering plants, shrubs, and trees, and set about to nurture and shape them day by day, doing those things which enhance his garden and eliminating those things which distort or destroy it.

Of course there will be limits to what he can do. If he tries to jam his plot with every flower and tree known to man, he will become quickly frustrated. Each gardener will have access to different plants and seeds and will have different interests and likes. But if he chooses wisely, each one has the opportunity to develop a beautiful garden, perhaps quite unlike anyone else's garden, but a beautiful garden nonetheless.

Our lives are much like that. Each of us has been given this day to live. It contains just 24 hours for every one of us. The question is, what will we do with our 24 hours, based on the gifts and the interests God has given us? Over a lifetime, as you invest in that garden day by day, you will develop a beautiful and productive garden; or if you have chosen otherwise, your life may end up barren and full of weeds. But the choice is yours, and you make it by deciding what you will do as the quartz crystal pulsates and the earth spins and our planet circles the sun. Those things are happening. The question is, what are we doing as they happen?

Again, time is not something to be anxiously measured. The earth will continue to rotate at the same speed, dividing the light from the darkness. The question is what you will be doing as those artificial milestones of time bracket our particular life.

Seen in this light, the Christian may now take a significant step further. We recognize that life, measured by time if you will, is a gift from God. He formed us in His image and He breathed into us the breath of life. As we approach the question of how we will live our lives, we have the advantage of having learned from God something of His intent and purpose in forming us and granting us our particular garden plot, if you will. We know, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism declares, that our chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We know that to glorify God is to reflect His character in the world. (Now we are beginning to get some place.) We know we need to show God’s compassion and love for others. We know we need to show His truth in our integrity. We know we need to reflect His holiness in our obedience to His word. And we know that He expects us to take time to enjoy a relationship with Him--to reflect His glory and to enjoy Him. That is the reason He made us. Now we have something substantial. Time is not substantial, but this commission is.

For us, then, the whole question of time becomes a much deeper question of the stewardship of this tremendous gift of life, the gift of opportunities to glorify God and to enjoy Him. We did not invent life. He breathed His spirit into us and we became living beings. What did He have in mind? How can we live our lives in a way that will accomplish the greatness of His purpose for us? He gives each of us particular talents. How are we going to use them in becoming the people He designed us to be?

This is what the Christian means by the stewardship of time. We are talking about priorities, aren’t we? The most succinct statement of that is found in Ephesians 5, in the text we read a few moments ago. He has been talking about whether we reflect light or darkness in our daily walk, and then in verses 15 and 16 he warns us, "Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of . . . “--the older translations said “making the most of the time,” but the Greek word is kairos which means “opportunities.” The NIV is right, “making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."

So here we have a challenge to be constantly on the alert concerning how we live, because the days are full of risk, full of distractions. There are a thousand ways things might go wrong every day of our lives. We need to be particularly alert. I remember driving nearly 2000 miles across country one winter in weather ranging from blizzard conditions, at the worst, to sheer ice, at the best. The risks were great, and therefore we had to be constantly on the alert with regard to how we drove. One miscalculation might have sent us spinning out of control into an oncoming vehicle, or over an embankment. When conditions are stable you speed along with hardly a thought to what you are doing, but when such great risks arise it calls for our careful attention.

The apostle Paul is saying there really are a lot of risks. You need to be paying attention as to exactly what it is you are doing. He is saying that the days are evil, as we know, and we can’t just take things for granted. We must plan our way. We can’t just let them happen. We can’t just let time pass. We must plan our pathway through life with the greatest of care and guard our steps to make certain they are leading to the proper goal and we are not spinning out of control. Lives that are “too busy” feel like they are spinning out of control. So we must "make the most of every opportunity." We must use our time in an effective way which contributes to the accomplishment of the particular goals that we draw from God’s word and from the word of His Spirit in our hearts.

Now, do you want to hear something radical? The Bible is quite clear that God gives us all the resources we need to do His will. Philippians 4:19 is one of the places where He says that. If He calls us to do something, He will make sure we have the gifts and the resources and the opportunities to do it.

Remember God’s conversation with Moses in Exodus 4 when Moses was reluctant to accept His commission to deliver His people from Egypt? “Oh, I just couldn’t do that,” he says. “I don’t have the time; I don’t have the skills; I can’t speak in the way I need to.” He is making all the excuses we do, and God says, Wait a minute here.

Who gave man his mouth? . . . Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.

Likewise in 1 Samuel 15, God responds to King Saul’s excuses by saying, you might be small in your own eyes–you may think you don’t have the resources to do the job–but I called you. I sent you on this mission. Your job is simply to do it. I’ll be responsible for whatever resources you need.

Each one of us has received particular gifts from God. They are unique. They are different from the people around us. It is up to us to use those gifts and resources in a way that pleases God. Among those resources is the particular quantity of time that each of us has. We have enough time to do what God wants us to do. We are not short on time. If we are too busy, then we are not doing God's will, or at least not exclusively God's will. If things are stacking up on us so that we cannot get around to certain priorities, like our personal devotions, or nurturing our marriage or our relationships, or serving Christ's church, then we are operating independently of God's will.

Now you might have a lot of people you can blame for that--maybe your boss has been too demanding, all kinds of things may be keeping you from doing what you believe God would have you do with your life. But if you are not doing what you believe God wants you to do, somewhere along the line you have gotten off track. You are too busy for your own good. If we end the day "short on time" always, then we have not done exclusively what God intended for us to do.

God, by the way, is no slave driver. I actually think we have more than enough time to do His will. He intended for us to pace ourselves, to rest periodically, to enjoy what is being accomplished, to enjoy the process, the road. He had no intention for us to be on the run 24-7, as we say today.

I am always impressed when I look at the life of Jesus. Think about what Jesus accomplished in three short years of ministry. I have been at this thirty years and I feel like I have barely gotten started. Jesus had three years, but do you see Him rushing about breathlessly saying, "I'm so busy! I can't get all this done!"? No, you see Him walking at a simple pace, you Him talking to the people He encounters, and at the end of three years He says, "It is finished." Will any of us feel that our tasks are ever finished? Jesus of course walked perfectly before the Lord as He ought, but it is an indication that when God has given us a task to do, the closer we come to doing His will, the more we will find that we can accomplish it in the time available.

So I believe every Christian has a vitally important responsibility to steward his or her time--or more precisely to steward our lives and our opportunities for God. If we are held accountable for our money, certainly we will be held accountable for the shaping of our lives, for the use of our opportunities. Time stewardship is about shaping our lives, choosing the right priorities.

Let me end with some very practical suggestions this morning about the stewardship of our time, because most of us will probably go away from here convinced we are too busy (we were convinced of that before we came in), convinced we need to focus more, but struggling with how we can go about doing that. What can we do to improve our use of time and the opportunities it brings?

I think this is very important. I think one of the major things Satan can do is distract us with busyness. While we are looking for temptations to do some terrible thing, he is just saying, If I can keep them busy they are not going to accomplish anything. So let’s see if we can get past him here and accomplish something.

I think there are some clues in this passage of scripture as to how we might go about it and improve our use of time and opportunities. First, the RSV says here in verse 15, "Look carefully then how you walk." “Be careful how you live,” the NIV says. In other words, take a close look at how you are currently spending your time. Are you "making the most of every opportunity?" That is the first challenge. For starters, each of us needs to do some kind of a personal inventory, some kind of a time study. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Keep a sheet of paper handy for a few days, maybe for a week, and from the time you get up to the time you go to bed jot down every hour or so what you accomplished in the last hour. That is going to be very revealing; I’ll warn you in advance. Some hours are going to go by where you didn’t accomplish anything at all. But write it down. Be honest. You don’t have to show this to anyone else. This is for you. I don't know if this applies to you, but the average American adult watches more than 20 hours of television per week. That adds up to 43 days a year. You want to buy an extra hour? You can get 43 days by unplugging your TV set! Internet addicts, I’m afraid, probably spend even more time than that! So there is some calculating we are going to have to do once we’ve taken this little personal inventory.

A careful analysis of our use of time will reveal all kinds of time-wasters we might not have noticed. You may be spending an undue amount of time on tasks that are easy but unimportant, meetings that don’t really advance your ability to do what God has called you to do, working on other people's priorities. Now we are interdependent, and we are going to need to do some other people's priorities, but we need to do them on purpose because we believe God has called us to that. We need to know what it is that God wants us to accomplish. We may be spending more time than we can afford reading newspapers and magazines or scanning the internet for news. We might even (this is radical) be giving our job more hours than we can without seriously jeopardizing our marriage and family relationships. If so, we are going to have to do some serious soul searching. But if we want to be doing God's will, if we want to be accomplishing the important things, we are going to have to address even issues like that.

Once we have taken a personal inventory and sorted out some of these priorities, we need to begin to see what is really important for us to be doing and focus our limited resources on those things. How do we know what is really important? Well, we will have to determine that based on the gifts and the opportunities God has given us; and the way to determine that, I believe, is to write down the goals you believe God would have you do. When I say write down I mean that. I don’t mean think about them; I think we need to write them down, or we will not really deal with them. We are going to have goals in several different areas of our life, at least four different areas. You will have personal goals. You will have family or relational goals. You will have spiritual goals. And you will have goals for your career. You may think of other categories, but most everything will fit in one of those four. Some of those will conflict with each other, but they are all important to our health and vitality, so we have to distribute our time and our opportunities among them. If we are getting overbalanced on one or two, then we have to revise our schedule.

After stating our goals, we have to write down (not just think about) the particular steps necessary to reach those goals. Do you need a quiet time in the morning to nurture your spirit? Do you need an exercise time each day to nurture your body? Whatever the steps are, write them down.

Then the most difficult part, we must distribute our limited time among those goals. We must determine the number of hours we will spend each day on each step. Here I think we have to be realistic. Chances are we have more goals than we can reach, and most tasks take a good deal more time than we thought they would take, so we will have to choose which, in each of those four areas, are really the most important, and how much time we can realistically afford. Then I would suggest we actually write down on our calendar when we are going to do the things we have committed to do.

Now I have tried to point out the logical approach to this issue. You can figure this out for yourself, but I have placed in your bulletins a simple worksheet which may help you get started on this all-important job of arranging your priorities and distributing your time. If you want to use a different format and if you want several pages or whole notebooks that’s up to you, but at least there is a bit of a guide there. As you do this prioritizing, which is I believe a commitment we have before the Lord, a stewardship of our time and opportunities, let me suggest one thing. As this is a matter of stewardship, I expect it will work much the same way as it does with our other resources. Last week we learned from God’s Word that if we are willing to invest the first fruits of our money, our material resources, in God’s work, He will make certain we have enough resources left to cover the rest of our expenses. That is a promise we have from God.

I want to suggest to you that I believe it will work the same with our time. Let me challenge you to begin setting your priorities by determining what time you will invest in deepening your relationship with the Lord and serving Him. A tithe of your waking hours would be ten or eleven hours a week. Those can be distributed among Bible study, prayer, and worship, as well as some area of service. Committing that time establishes your first priority, and I believe God will honor that in helping you sort out the remaining hours. Additionally, it will give you a place from which you can figure out what else is really important in your life. The closer you are walking to the Lord, the more you are listening to His word, the better you will be able to determine what is truly important among the opportunities you have. From there, the adventure of living really begins.

Closing Prayer - Heavenly Father, we are challenged by all the things that come our way, all the things that demand our attention. We are too busy, and it doesn’t seem like a horrible, sinful thing, but, on the other hand, it certainly keeps us from being productive. It is significant, maybe more significant than anything else, because it affects everything else. I pray that we might take seriously your challenge to look carefully how we walk and to make the most of the opportunities that are ours. So let us commit some time today, this afternoon or evening, whenever it is, to sit down and be serious about our priorities. Let us listen to your voice and let us find our lives beginning to be shaped step-by-step, moment-by-moment, day-by-day in a way that honors you and in a way that nurtures us. We pray this in the name of Jesus, AMEN.