At 6:30 p.m., precisely, it will be there. You have planned it perfectly, and nothing can stop you from reaching your prize. All day long, when time allowed, you had manipulated the vision in your mind: the empty recliner [couch? hammock?] and the unread morning newspaper, especially the [fill in the blank] section. And of course a cup of [your favorite beverage goes here].

Finally, it's 6:29 and you're a few feet away from heaven on earth, bending down to pick up the paper when . . . that can't be the phone, not now.

"Hi," the voice says, "I didn't catch you in the middle of something, did I?"

"Um . . ."

"I really need to talk."

In the above scenario, the interruption could have been anything¬anything, that is, that invades a part of our lives we have decided to call "mine." As intangible as it may seem, time, like money, is a gift from God. We can spend it wisely or unwisely. The choice is ours.

When we come to the discipline of time stewardship, many of us find two difficult hurdles to clear before getting on to the business of "maximizing our minutes." These are the twin hurdles of selfishness, as illustrated above, and fear.

"When we try to keep within us an area that is our own," wrote C.S. Lewis, "we try to keep an area of death."¹ Jesus, the Creator of time, knew this and was able to say at the end of his life: "I glorified you on earth by completing down to the last detail what you assigned me to do."² What was His secret?

He knew, as should we, that the greatest sense of fulfillment lies in living and doing God's will. The great bugaboo that frightens most of us is the fear that God will place a monkey on our backs and give us a task we'll hate¬or that He will take away the thing we love most. Rest assured, He will deal with those things (idols) that stand between us and Him. It is our submission¬the yielding of control¬He is longing for. The newspaper may have to wait.

Once we clear those hurdles, which can reappear with each new faith-test, we can begin to "redeem the time." This curious phrase, found in Ephesians 5:16 and Colossians 4:5, carries with it the idea of buying up all that is available. We can picture this by thinking of what happens in cities along the Gulf and East coasts when a hurricane is approaching. Batteries, bottled water and canned goods all disappear as anxious shoppers stock up, anticipating the impending storm.

In the Ephesians passage, Paul is encouraging the Christians of Ephesus to look at the world in the same way. Evil days are ahead, so the Ephesians need to buy up time like bottled water and make the most of every opportunity. Though he didn't quote it here, Paul surely was knowledgeable of the great promise of Ecclesiastes 3: "There is an appointed time for everything."

"There is always enough time," writes Elisabeth Elliot, "to do the will of God. For that we can never say, 'I don't have time.'"³ If God gives us something to do He will also give us the time necessary to complete the task. He will not frustrate us. Though everyone is given the same daily allotment¬24 hours¬God is very creative with the 1,440 minutes within.

"There really is always time for the things He calls you to do," says Mary, a home-schooling mother of seven children, ages 1 to 13. She relates a parable that compares a 24-hour day with a shoe box, and God's creativity at helping us to accomplish more for Him. "At first you fill the shoe box with rocks and are sure your day is full. Then God adds some small pebbles, then sand. When you cannot possibly find any more time, He fills the box with water." There is always enough time to do the will of God.

A word of caution here. We must let God add the rocks and sand and water. Learn to say "no." Expanding on Jesus' triumphant comment that He had completed the Father's task for Him, Elliot writes, "This was not the same as saying He had finished everything He could possibly think of to do or that He had done everything others had asked. He made no claim to have done what He wanted to do. The claim was that He had done what had been given."⁴

Moses learned this lesson the hard way. On the Israelites' journey out of Egypt and into the desert, Moses was a true leader. Eventually he took on too much responsibility, however, and began holding a kind of open-air, small-claims court each day. All of Israel would bring their squabbles and disputes, and Moses would try to discern God's judgment in the matter. Luckily, Moses father-in-law, Jethro, had the sense to see what was going to happen.

What on earth are you doing, Moses? said Jethro. This job is going to eat you for lunch. You need some help. He then related his plan of delegating authority within the peoples of Israel, and leaving only the major disputes for Moses to judge. "They will bear the burden with you."⁵

Along with learning to say no to external pressures, as Moses learned, we must also learn to say no to ourselves. Mastering ourselves is what Paul talked about in Galatians 5, when he listed the fruit of the Spirit-filled life. Among the fruit is self-control, which ancient Christian writers called "temperance" and numbered among the seven virtues. It carries the idea of going just far enough and no further¬of keeping yourself in check.

This is not easy to pull off while living in a society that tempts us with two equal and opposite sins: workaholism and idleness. Each can easily grow out of proportion; each can master us, often cloaking deeper sins. We must seek the golden mean between the two and learn from Jesus, who knew when to work and when to seek rest and refreshment.

We will experience the greatest amount of rest and fulfillment, however, when we yield the rights to "our" time and seek the Lord daily, asking what His desire is for us each day. If we are following His perfect will and letting Him choreograph our days, our time will be multiplied, our work more rewarding and our rest more restful.

We may, with His help, even get to finish the morning paper.

For more information on how to become a better steward of time, please call 1-800-729-4351 to order a copy of Managing Yourself or, for deeper study, The Ministry of Management. The former was written and the latter co-written by Campus Crusade for Christ Executive Vice President Stephen Douglass.

1. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 130,131; 2. John 17:4 (The Message); 3. Elisabeth Elliot, Discipline: The Glad Surrender (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1982), p. 103; 4. Ibid., p. 103; 5. Exodus 18:13-26.

Study Questions

1. Do you claim time as your own? Does the idea of giving all your time to God agitate or encourage you? See Psalm 32:8.

2. In light of Ephesians 5:15,16 and Colossians 4:5, how will you begin to "redeem the time"?

3. Are you in control of your desires or do they control you? Meditate on the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22,23, especially "self control."