But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them.
So wrote singer and songwriter Jim Croce in his hit single of the early 1970s, “Time in a Bottle.” He wrote the song soon after his wife, Ingrid, told him she was pregnant—news that raised the value of time in Croce’s mind. Sadly, he would die three years later in a plane crash.
There never seems to be enough time …
The Bible has a lot to say about how we should relate to the clock and the calendar. For example:
- Psalm 90:12 makes it clear that wisdom comes by recognizing the brevity of life.
- Proverbs 16:9 endorses our inclination for making plans yet emphasizes God’s authority to change, improve, or overrule them.
- James 4:13-15 trains us to always keep God’s sovereignty in mind, even verbally reminding ourselves of it when we put tasks and appointments on our schedules.
All in all, the biblical way of “time management” is not about living under pressure, but about living with purpose, of being about our Father’s business. (Sound familiar?)
Learning to number our days is not an exercise to increase productivity (although that could result); rather, it is an invitation to abide—to abide in the One who was incarnated into the framework of earthly days and hours, yet somehow lived within those constraints without being hurried, worried, or impatient.
Squeezing this or that into our bulging schedules is not the answer. The whole point of numbering our days—of living with infinite purpose in finite time—is to “get a heart of wisdom.” And that is hard to do when we’re exhausted.
If we’re serious about saying yes to God regarding the way we invest our time, we begin by asking what His purposes are for our lives. What is the Father’s business?
So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12 (ESV)