Stewardship of your days

WOW

8/5/2009

Is it time yet?  That is the question of an impatient people.  Is it time yet, is it over yet, are we there yet?  I’ve been there. Haven’t you?

On the other hand the question of the stressed person is can’t I have another hour, day or week?  There’s never enough time- there are never enough hours in a day or days in a week.  I’ve been there too.  We all have haven’t we?

I want you to look at a number 17,279.. . . that‘s how many days I have been alive. 17,279 counting today which is not over yet.    That’s 414 696 hours. 25 million Minutes or get this almost 1.5 billion seconds.

Let’s stick with 17,279 days.   

At the age of 1,965 days I started school.  I remember standing out on the curb in front of our apartment in Lakewood Colorado with my little rug and box of crayons waiting for the bus.

At 5,966 days I was called into the ministry, or I began to recognize that call anyway.

At 6,622 days I graduated from High School.

At 7546 days I got married to Robyn on a cold December day in LeMars Iowa.

8,239    9,472 and 16,249: these are days I’ll never forget.  Some of the best days , when Amber, Richie and then Noah were born.

At almost 12,000 days I left the ministry and the church and at about 16,500 I returned as pastor here.

I could go on listing important days, but how many do you suppose I would be able to identify.  Out of over 17,000 days God has given me how many do you suppose I can identify as an important day.  Maybe a hundred or a couple hundred.  That would be about 1%

Well, think about it- how many dates can you identify in your life of thousands of days.  You probably can’t identify more than 1% either.

Of 17, 000 days, or 18 thousand or 19,000 or 20,000 days does the fact that we can only remember a few of them mean that the others weren’t important? No, not necessarily.    It means they have slipped from the front of our conscious memory to the back.  But what of today? As today draws to an end will today be one of those days that sticks out in your memory, or will it be one that slides to the back of the conscious mind and into the dusty, forgotten, foggy obscurity of eternity?

Now I am not saying that we have to remember every single day and every single minute of our lives.  You probably know me well enough by now that you know that my memory is poor enough that I actually worry about it sometimes.  Mercifully I soon forget what I was worrying about and go on my merry little pathetic way.

That’s why I live with my pocket brain.

That’s not the point though.  It is not remembering I want to talk about today.

Listen to the 12th verse of the 90th Psalm again.  “Teach us to number our days aright,
       that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  That’s the New international version.

The Contemporary English version says, “Teach us to use wisely  all the time we have.”  I think that clarifies it for me.  “Teach us to use wisely all the time we have.”

This becomes a stewardship passage then.  God has given us a certain number of days.  Mine so far is 17,279.  Yours is different, but whatever it is the question from Psalm 90 becomes an issue of stewardship. What does it mean to use wisely the days we have. 

First we have to be clear that it would be a tremendous waste of time for us to read all the books available on time management.  Not that we can’t lean some things.  I try to read one every few years just to make sure I am doing the best I can with the time I have.  But that is very different from Stewardship of time.

Second, let’s be clear that I am not saying as some do, that any time not spent in the Bible and prayer is wasted time.  God placed us in this world and surrounded us with both people to love and people who have needs.  So I think that narrow type of thinking is ridiculous.

What I am saying is there are a few principles God has given us for the use of our days, and that we would do well to remember them.

First, you may know that the first tool of time management is doing the important things first.  This last week I heard a teacher talk about doing first things first and second things not at all.  Now that’s a little black and white, but the first principle is Christian time management is like that. 

Seek God first, last and in between.  Matthew 6:33 says seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  Here is where Bible reading and prayer does come into the picture.  And so does worship and service and meditation, and any other disciple building activity.

Seeking God first is not a chronological command.  It does not mean get up, do your devotions and the rest of the day is yours.  This is not a chronological command but a prioritizing command.   Keep first things first.  When we commit to being a disciple of Jesus Christ we commit to putting God first in our lives.  We commit to making God the most important things in our lives. When we become a disciple we commit to loving God and others as we love ourselves.

 Put God first when you get up in the morning.  Put God first at breakfast.  Put God first when you go to work or school or play.  Put God first at lunch.  Put God first when you do your chores, or homework, or relax.  Put God first when you lay down for the night.  Put God first in all things.  God should be first, last and in the middle of all we do, all we think, all we say, and all we want.  So seek God first- at all times make God the first and most important relationship in your life and you will be on your way to Christian time management- or stewardship.

The second principle is from that same chapter of Matthew.  If the first principle is put first things first- the second is like it put last things nowhere.

Jesus says “why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them”

In other words, if you can’t do anything about it.  Don’t do anything about it.   Do you know the serenity prayer? 

God grant me the serenity 
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

As Jesus asks, “does worry add one day to the length f your life?”  Does worry add any more money to your thin bank account?  Does worry make the medicine work better?  Does worry make your marriage or your relationship with your children more loving?  Has worry ever kept any bad thing from happening?  NO.  So why do we do it.  And I include myself in that question. 

When I say “put last things nowhere”  I mean don’t do the things that won’t do any good like worry . . . or guilt.   Guilt has never made anyone a better person.  It has never fed anyone unless you count someone making a donation out of guilt.  But there are better reasons to give.  Guilt does not bring us closer to God in fact it pushes us away because we feel as though we aren’t’ good enough to be in relationship.  Well, we are right, we don’t deserve to be loved by God, but God loves us anyway.  Guilt drives us away from other people.  Guilt even drives us into not loving ourselves.  None of those things are helpful.  So our time is much better spent confessing and receiving forgiveness “Confess our sins to one another and he will be faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

There are other things that are last and ought not be done at all.

Anger for instance: Don’t let the sun go down on your anger (Eph 4:26)

Jesus talks about do not be angry, do not lust, do not waste your time in unproductive ministry - just wipe the dust from your feet and move on.  Learn to say no to those unproductive activities and move on to things that are productive.

In summary don’t waste your time on things that don’t show fruit. Jesus said “Any branch that does not bear fruit is pruned.”  If it doesn’t show love to God, others, or yourself cut it off.

So, make loving God and God’s children first. Second, prune anything that doesn’t show love for God or others.

Finally, you know that life is a constant series of ups and downs.  You know that everything that lives, is born, lives and dies.  You know that there are years of bountiful harvest and years of slim harvest.  You know that there are times of Joy and times of sadness.  Ecclesiastes chapter 3- made famous by the Byrd’s in 1965- song “Turn, Turn Turn,” says there is a season for everything under heaven.  They are God’s seasons and it is our job to embrace those seasons.  When times are good, we thank God.  When times are bad we thank God, look for a lesson to learn and move on.  When we are well, we thank God.  When we are ill we thank God for life and practice patience while we heal.  When we are successful we thank God.  When we fail, we seek comfort from God and try again.

This is not a fatalistic “what will be, will be” attitude.  This is part of our Christian stewardship of time.  Understanding that there are seasons, and ups and downs, there are good times and bad, there is summer and fall and spring and winter and we must embrace the whole breadth of God’s time.   It is affirming that when our lives are good, God is there.  When our lives are hard, God is there.  When we succeed God is there, and when we fail, God is there.  When we feel close to God, God is there, and when we feel far away God is there.  It is our job to embrace every moment, every day, every hour, every minute, every second because they come to us from God.

Have I embraced every one of those 17, 279 days?  No.  I can’t honestly say I have.  But I am seeking to embrace today.  And tomorrow and the day after that.  I might not remember each of them when I have lived another 17,000 days, but I hope to be able to look back and say “I might not remember them, but I know deep inside of me that God was there.  God and I were there together.

How do you use your time?  What kind of steward are you. 

The nature of time is that we can’t go back and do better on yesterday or the day before.

The nature of time is that tomorrow is always just out of reach.

The nature of time is that the only time you can control- the only time you can use wisely- the only time that you can do anything about is right here, right now, this very moment.

Let us pray.