Biblical guidelines to manage a busy life

Last week we spoke about the five benefits of managing our time well. God wants us to live healthy, balanced lives, and the enemy of our souls pushes us to live in survival mode, stealing what is most important, like our relationships and health. We can change things, but we must be prepared to do what is necessary. Here are a few guidelines that can help.

1. TREASURE OUR TIME

God says that we should treasure time as a valuable commodity. “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. Psalm 90:12 (NIV). When we study Jesus’ life, we recognise that He knew His time was short. Every moment was precious, and there was a lot to accomplish. We have to take that attitude to managing our time. We need to treasure every moment that we have. Each day is a gift. That’s why it’s called the “present” 1We can make more money, but we can’t make more time.

We have heard the expression “time is money”, but it is not true. Time is much more valuable than money. It may be hard to make more money, but it can be done, however, it is impossible to make more time. Time is more valuable than money. A.W. Tozer wrote: “Time is a resource that is non-renewable and non-transferable. You cannot store it, slow it up, hold it up, divide it up, or give it up. You can’t hoard it up or save it for a rainy day – when it’s lost it is unrecoverable. When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.”

2. INVITE GOD TO DIRECT THE USE OF OUR TIME

“In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.” Mark 1:35 (NASB). Jesus was obviously communing with His Father. A usual devotion is good, but it must be more than that. When Jesus was going to choose His apostles, He prayed all night for direction, and we also take note of the fact that Jesus said that He does only what He sees His Father doing. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that in the early morning, one of the things Jesus did was to pray over His day, week, and possibly, month. He prayed about His time and how He spent it. We also need to ask the Lord to show us what He wants us to do daily. Bring to Him the things that could occupy the day and have Him show you what to do and what not to do. Martin Luther King said, “I have so much to do that if I didn’t spend at least three hours a day in prayer, I would never get it all done.”

Anything we want to be blessed by God has to be given to Him as first. If we desire to honour God, we’ll have to dedicate more time to family, rest, self-reflection, and personal growth, essentially, more time for God and His priorities. He will honour that. Prayer must come first.

Some things may have to be postponed or cancelled. Sometimes, God miraculously redeems the time and things take less time than initially thought, or He gives favour and sometimes He reorders how we do things in a way that is different from what we had in mind. The scripture says: “Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you”. Psalm 37:5 NLT. Jesus applied a principle to His time, and next week we’ll discuss it.