The yellow and orange leaves on the ground remind us that summer has once again come and gone, and most of us young people are back at school. Many of us find ourselves in quite the predicament, juggling our time and energy between school, work, family, the ecclesia, and too often lastly, God. It just seems that the alarm goes off far too early, we get out of bed far too late, and the next thing we know we are crawling back into bed at the close of another day.

Surely God deserves more than a passing thought as we lay our dizzy head on the pillow at night. And isn’t it so easy as well with exams and deadlines around the corner to rationalize the neglect of our spiritual needs? How can we find the balance? With so many demands on our time and energy, how can we offer the firstfruits to God?

The key is time management, as my grandfather once told me, and I believe he was right. We encounter the dilemma of what to do with our time every day, every moment we are awake. If we can discipline ourselves to budget this time wisely, we will find that things start to fall into place, into the right place in our lives. The following three metaphors for time will help us as young people to do just that.

We can’t stop the clock
First, time is like the Energizer Bunny: it keeps going and going. Time marches on whether we like it or not, creating a sense of urgency. Time is of the essence! In Job 7:1 it says, “Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling?” The fact of the matter is we are one second closer to the day we die, or to Christ’s return; and, in either case, we ought to use that second wisely.

I look at it like this. Imagine you’re taking a test at school. There’s a time limit to the test, but you don’t know what it is. At any moment the teacher could walk by and pick up your paper, and that would be it. There’d be no time for daydreaming, would there? That’s how it is in life. We can’t freeze time and finish up one last problem. We’ve got to work with what we’ve been given.
There is, however, one little way to cheat the game. Waking up 30 minutes earlier every day adds 7 1⁄2 days to your conscious life in one year. Think how much we could get done in that amount of time! What a great way to start off the day, with a prayer, or a reading, or just a meditation to God. While it is true that we cannot stop time from ticking, we can and must make the most of it.

High-quality time
Second, time is like money: so many ways to put it to good use, yet so many ways to waste it. When we go into a store, we only buy what we want to buy. So it is with time. In any given day, we only do the things we want to do. And like the exam referred to above, we’ve been given a bank account, but we don’t know the balance. Would you squander your last dollar? You’d have to treat every penny as if it were your last.

Life truly is a gift. Due to no action on our part, God has granted us this life. He flat out gave it to us. Why not give it back? We’ve been given a voice: why not sing praises to His name? We’ve been given thought; why not remember our Creator in the days of our youth? So also we’ve been given time; why not devote our best to Him and His service?

Time can’t be recovered
Third, time is like toothpaste: once it is out of the tube, good luck putting it back in. How many times have you wished you could rewind your life a few minutes or a few seconds to take back something you said or did? Unfortunately the remote control of life has no rewind button and sometimes it takes years to correct a few moments spent foolishly.

And what about a full day? Wouldn’t we regret letting a whole day slip by without giving a thought to our Heavenly Father? Just as we cannot freeze time, we also cannot turn back the clock in life. At the end of the day, do we have any regrets? We ought to live each day such that we would be at peace if it were our last. There is a saying that no one says on his or her deathbed, “I wish I spent more time at the office.” We ought to prioritize our lives with God at the head and lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven.

Keeping God in all things
These three examples illustrate that time ticks on, that it must be spent wisely, and that it cannot be taken back. Time truly is precious and we recognize the need to manage our time wisely, but what about the practical side of things? What about that test tomorrow? In the end our education should be taken seriously. We ought to do everything that our hand findeth to do with all our might (Eccl. 9:10) and to the glory of God (I Cor. 10:31), but working hard at school and devoting our best to God should not be mutually exclusive activities.

In fact, they go hand in hand. Isn’t it true that when we give our best to God, we seem to have so much more to give to other endeavors? We lay our burdens at His feet, and thus free ourselves of such worry and stress. We think clearly, we see the big picture. In the end, we are so much better off than if we try to go it alone. If we submit to the yoke of Christ, he is there with us every step of the way. What better help is there? What better way to sort out our hectic lives than to allow our hearts to be filled with the peace of God which passeth all understanding? We may feel tossed by the tempest, but allow Christ into the boat and the waves and wind subside. Let us then make time in our lives for God. We will be much better off and above all else, we will bring glory to His great name.

Matt Jones, California
November 1999