Utilizing Your Time

"pray without ceasing"

1 Thess. 5:17

"But his delight is in the law of the Lord

And in His law he meditates day and night."

Psalm 1:2

I don't have time.

I'm too busy.

Do you know my work schedule? 

I'm a working student, I barely have time to sleep.

I have kids so there's no way.

 

When asked about your prayer and devotional life have you ever made one of the above excuses? Maybe you didn't vocalize it but you were thinking it in your mind. You know that you should pray and read the Bible but you feel there will never be enough time. You know you should be feeding your spirit but when can you do that?

The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

Stephen Covey

 

Have you scheduled time for devotions? The Bible, especially Psalms, constantly talks about seeking Him in the morning so that is a good place to start. You might have to stop hitting the snooze button or set your alarm for a little bit earlier but it's worth it! 

 

However, as simple as getting up earlier is, I think there is an even simpler solution that may be even more important of a change. Just learn to utilize the time that you have!

 

What are you doing on your commute to work? 

 

How do you use your breaks and your lunch?

 

What are you doing while you wait in the doctor's office? 

So much of our day is time spent waiting, doing nothing. Think about your commute to work for example. According to census.gov the average commute time for Americans in 2009 was 25 minutes. That's almost an hour of time that most Americans are probably wasting just driving to and from work. However you could utilize that time!

Think about the change to your spiritual health if you prayed an extra 50 minutes a day.

That's an easy 50 minutes of seeking God right there, time that you normally spend listening to music, worrying about your work, or yelling at other drivers. You could also use that time to listen to the Bible on CD, or books on tape. There are many ways that you could utilize the time in your commute to help you seek God. 

Next step would be to take a look at your work. Often we have time at our work that we don't even realize. This time could be spent reading, praying or even listening to sermons. My brother has a job where he often ends up doing mindless data entry and he realized that while he's doing that he can listen to sermons with his headphones and strengthen his spirit. 

Another idea is to write down a scripture on an index card and keep it in your pocket throughout the day. Then when you have those breather moments just pull it out and read it and then ask God to speak to you through that scripture. 

Lastly, re-prioritize your time off. I always find it interesting how we complain about never having time and then we talk about the latest movie that we watched. Think about how long a movie is, even a short movie is about 1.5 hours. Think of what you could do in that time. I've heard people talk about needing their 'movie time' to 'unwind' from a stressful day, but wouldn't it be better for us to 'unwind' by getting in the presence of God or by meditating on His Word? I am not saying that watching movies is a sin but I think we need to start recognizing that 'movie time' is not a requirement. If you don't have time for devotionals, or for family time, or for pursuing the gifts that God has placed in you, maybe it's time to cut out 'movie time'.