Wearing the Right Watch

Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts
(Psalm 90:12 – HCSB)

One way that we often forget to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ is by the use of our time. However, that doesn’t mean just to be busier “about God’s business” by just being busier. It means living each moment as an opportunity to serve God, in whatever situation you find yourself in, not just waiting to get to that thing you want to do for God (Colossians 3:23-24). Sometimes your responsibilities for God can keep you from God.

The difference between living out our purpose and being driven is most clearly seen in what we do with time. The driven are fanatical time managers – time-mongers, time-herders, and time-hoarders. Living requires time management, true, but not the kind that attempts to quarantine most of what makes life what it is: the mess, the surprises, the breakdowns, and the breakthroughs. However, that is what many if not most people do, especially as they become “successful”. These are pitfalls of trying to be a Christian success, one is acquiring, another is avoiding. Avoiding and acquiring hinder you from acknowledging God in every situation.

If you try and control every situation, you are controlled by every situation. Too much rigidity strangles purpose. The more we try to manage time, the more anxious we get about it, and the more we get distracted and lose our purpose. Many driven people, at some point, forget their purpose. They lose the point. The very reason they began something – something that may have been noble – fades under the weight of their striving. Being driven too hard, their purpose gets displaced by greed for more, or dread of setback, or force of habit. Their drive eventually becomes their purpose.

Truly purposeful people manage time less and pay attention more. The most purposeful people I know rarely over-manage time, and when they do, it's usually because they're lapsing into busyness and guilt. The distinguishing mark of purposeful people is not time management. It's that they notice what is really going on for all it is worth. They are being and living prophetically. They acknowledge God, they thank God in all and for all they do.

We can miss that, and miss wisdom. Too often we become so time-obsessed that we take no time to really notice. We look at our watch, and think that we need to just hurry up and get on with it; we need to go watch the big game, right? See what this text proclaims: those who number their days carefully gain a wise heart. However, it is not numbering them by the clock, but by the experience. The people who do this become God's wise men: those calm, unhurried people who live in each moment fully, savoring simple things, celebrating small epiphanies, unafraid of life's inevitable surprises, adaptive to change yet not chasing after it. We must learn this many times.

The truly purposeful are not trying to move on to the next thing, and scratching another thing off the list, they are living God’s purposes to the full in every moment. They are truly awake to the life of God. Instead of thinking about the next big thing, pay attention to how God is present in each moment, in its mad rush or its rigmarole. He is present in both.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©