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PART TWO EFFECTIVENESS FACTORS
Chapter 1 Focusing on Vital Things
During a CNN interview in mid-1997, the noted evangelist Billy Graham was asked, “What in your life has surprised you most?” He answered, “The brevity of it.”
The first supervisor I had after graduating from college was a man in his sixties. He had a plaque on his desk inscribed with an old Pennsylvania Dutch saying:
“Ve get too soon oldt und too late schmart.”
Who, among those in their sunset years, would not agree with these observations? Certainly Job shared this feeling: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle” (Job 7:6). Shakespeare expressed the brevity of life in Act V of Macbeth:
Life’s but a walking shadow, A poor player that struts and frets His hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.
Henry Dobson made this observation:
Time goes, you say? Ah no. Alas, Time stays, we go.[1]
It has been said that Father Time is the only preacher to whom we all must listen. We can’t delay the clock, or hasten it. Like sands in the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
Concepts of time are difficult to explain. Saint Augustine wrote, “For what is time? Who is able easily and briefly to explain it?…And yet, what in our usual discourse do we more familiarly and knowingly make more mention of than time?…What is time? If nobody asks me, I know; but if I were desirous to explain it to someone who asks me, plainly I know not.”
Time isn’t money or even a commodity. It is often depicted as a thief or robber, stealing our years and our life away. And yet, the supply of time is truly a daily miracle. We wake up in the morning with 24 hours of a resource, without which nothing would be possible. Our goal should be to invest the deposit of the 1440 minutes put into our account each day. Those minutes cannot be saved; they must be spent. Someone has said, “You can spend your time any way you want, but you can spend it only once.”
All of us have all the time there is—24 hours per day. When we fail to do something, it is not because we didn’t have time to do it; it is because we gave other things a higher priority. We always have time for our most important task.
Some people seem to believe that the goal of time management is to maximize our activity level—to get as many things done as possible in a given time span. Effective time management, however, is concerned with doing the “right” things; it is concerned with setting priorities:
· Vital things are given the highest priority. · Important—but not vital—things are given the next highest priority. · Trivial things are given zero priority.
There are two commonly recommended ways to save time. One is to do things more efficiently and in the right sequence. The other is not to do trivial and unimportant things. Big blocks of time can be used for doing vital and important things simply by refusing to do those things that are neither vital nor important.
The key question is: What are the vital things? If we had asked the Apostle Paul this question, he might have given us the advice he gave to the Church at Ephesus:
Look carefully how you walk! Live purposely and worthily, and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise—sensible, intelligent people: making the very most of the time—buying up each opportunity—because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is. —Ephesians 5:15-17 (The Living Bible)
In essence, Paul is exhorting us to make the best use of our time by doing what God would have us do. This starts by living purposely. How important is purpose! Without purpose, time has no value, and we merely drift through life.
Another way Paul might have answered this question is with the advice he gave to the Christians in Rome:
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. —Romans 12:2 (NIV)
Obviously, we cannot simultaneously listen to God and to the world. Time can be a prison for those caught up in the pattern of the world. A dominant feature of our Western culture is a lust after material possessions. This lust is a trap when we become obsessed not only with acquiring things but in protecting them against loss. Riches and power are toys that cannot endure.
On the other hand, time has no power to destroy anything vital—anything pertaining to the purposes of God. In a letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote that he was quite prepared, if God’s purpose demanded it, to stay and minister to them, but that he had a greater desire to pass into another world. The oppression of time had no power over Paul because he was already living in the eternal world.
We can avoid conforming to the shallow values of the world by focusing on the life of Jesus. When we note the penetrating nature of His thinking, we feel both awe and admiration. His life flowed from an inner strength. Paul, who was certainly one of the great thinkers of his age, was fascinated by the mind of Jesus. He encouraged the early Christians to “have this mind among yourselves which you have in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). The New International Version translates this verse: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” What was this attitude? Jesus said, “take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). His attitude was one of self-sacrificing humility and love for others. Jesus was the consummate time manager. All four gospel accounts give the impression that He was never in a hurry, and yet he always had time for His most important task.
Often we procrastinate doing the tasks God gives us—tasks that we either don’t want to do or are afraid to do. The following poem can be an antidote to procrastination:
I Shall Not Pass This Way Again Through this toilsome world alas! Once and only once I pass; If a Kindness I may show, If a good deed I may do To a suffering fellow man, Let me do it while I can. No delay, for it is plain I shall not pass this way again. —Unknown
The hymn “Work for the Night Is Coming” exhorts us to work for the Kingdom with the awareness that our life will soon come to an end. The following is the last stanza:
Work for the night is coming, Under the sunset skies; While their bright tints are glowing, Work for the daylight flies. Work till the last beam fadeth, Fadeth to shine no more; Work for the night is darkening, When man’s work is o’er.[2]
At best, life is short. No matter what our stage in life, our lives and our work will soon be over. In fact, our time on earth may be far shorter than we think. No one has the assurance of being here tomorrow. Therefore, the important question is how should we spend the remaining time that we have? Certainly not in conforming to the pattern of the world. Rather, we should aim to “understand and firmly grasp the will of God,” as Paul suggested. We should do it without procrastinating and without allowing trivial pursuits to interfere with what God would have us do. Our time is our life, and it is a gift from God. If we are committed to live for Him, we must conclude that we should use our time for His purposes.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. —Colossians 3:17 (NIV)
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