Chasing Time: Priorities
What is the top priority in time management? This is the question that our pastor asked us Sunday. The answers the world gives are significantly different than what the Bible tells us. But first the sermon notes.
According to Ecclesiastes
- Contentment is the key priority to time management – The Teacher chased everything but nothing had meaning. By being content in what we do, we achieve much more instead of chasing after what we don’t have.
- Contentment is not achieved – it is not something we can chase. There is no “I will be content when….” Contentment has nothing to do with what might happen tomorrow. It is a state of being.
- Contentment is a gift from God.
We chase time when we are
- Bored
- Confused
- Rushed
- Failing
But God brings an end to boredom, confusion, being rushed, and failure.
I guess I kept waiting for Pastor Bart to quote Paul in Phillipians 4:11-13, “for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have…. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” To me this is an interesting perspective. Now, it isn’t speaking directly to time management but in some ways, our chasing time is in the end a chasing of stuff. We are not content with what we have, rather, we are always chasing after the next best thing.
Automobiles, computers, consumer electronics, etc., those businesses rely on us always wanting the next great thing. When I was growing up, one knew that you had arrived when you got a new car at least once every three years. Car dealers relied on that kind of cycle. I kind of laugh to think that Joy and I drive cars that are at least 10 years old. How embarrassing one could think. But to be content with the cars we have now leads us to not chasing after that shiny new debt.
The same can be said regarding my Macintosh. As much as I would love to have a new one so I could use all the shiny new software, I am content with my old G5 since it does all that I need it to do right now. I could chase after a new one, working my tail off to get the money to buy it and miss out on what God might desire me to do.
By being content with what we have, we open ourselves up to what God would have us do instead of chasing time to get what we want to do and get. Chasing after God brings the contentment that we desire. By making God our top priority, contentment, the top priority in time management is achieved.