The statement I don’t have enough time, is patently false. You do have enough time to do everything God wants you to do. It’s not a lack of time, it’s what you’re doing with your time – your priorities. The Bible says to redeem the time, to make the most of it (Ephesians 5:16). We each have the same amount of time, but what we do with the time today determines what we will have an opportunity to do with our time tomorrow. In general there is a kind of cumulative effect, or compounding effect of good choices. This is true of our choices about our time as well – the excellent use of time today will help us make more of out time in the future.
“But I’m soooo Busy!” In our culture today, everybody’s busy – there’s a kind of pride associated with being busy. However, there’s a difference between busyness and productivity. We should value productivity over busyness. The Bible doesn’t use the word productive per se, but the Bible does speak of fruitfulness, and I like that as a way of thinking about productivity. How do busyness and productivity differ? In so far as busyness is often a lack of thoughtfulness, prioritization and focus, it is often the enemy of productivity and fruitfulness. Busyness is activity, but fruitfulness comes from focused, prioritized, purposeful activity.
The Bible says work while it’s the day for the night is coming with no man can work (Jn 9:4). The Bible says plant your field then build your house (Prov 24:27). Prioritization is important.
The Men of Issachar in the Bible are described as, “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1Cron 12:32). This is interesting because it’s such a short description, why were these men from issachar even mentioned. I think it’s because these qualities are truly rare and truly superlative. When you have discernment about these two things, season and priority, it’s really powerful. A friend of mine has an interesting definition of opportunity, he says, opportunity is when preparation meets the timing of God.
So what do you do when you feel really busy? What do you do when you have more commitments then you have time? Well that’s the time for executive decision making. Every business person needs to come to grips with this fact: there will always be more to do (things making demands) than there is time to do it. So what do you do? You learn to be at peace with some things – some good things – being left undone. When you realize some things just won’t get done, then you realize it’s up to you to pick the things that MUST be done, in priority of importance!
We have all seen the illustration (in case you haven’t – watch this) . If you pour out a bucket of sand, pebbles, gravel and rocks and then try to fit them back into the bucket they will never fit, you will never get it all in, unless you PUT THE BIG ROCKS IN FIRST, then the gravel, then the pebbles and then the sand.
