We are stewards of all that God has given us, including time.
• At the last retreat, Rev Koh shared quite a bit on this – about the wise use of time.
• One month has passed since we heard his messages, and I wondered if we did let the message sink in. Are we using our time wisely today, or wiser today?
• One way to remind ourselves is to put a value to time – like $1 per second, and you have $86,400 in your account each day. No carrying forward. You are going to lose everything if you do not use it. You will want to draw out every cent!
• I read another illustration that day – if you have 90 years on earth, that’s 32,850 days. If you are 20 today, you will have 25,550 days left. Think about it in terms of money – it doesn’t take long to spend $25,000. That’s a year or two for your university study, a deposit for a decent HDB house. It isn’t a lot.
So we want to use our time wisely. And that does not necessarily mean we need to squeeze as much as we can into a day.
• Making ourselves busy does not imply you are using time wisely. People tend to think that way - especially in a city like ours where efficiency and productivity is very much our culture – be busy.
• We try to fight the clock - stay up late, sleep less do more, rush to school or work, catch a quick bite on the train, and talking on the phone at the same time.
As I study Jesus’ life, I am amazed that He never seemed to be in a hurry.
• Although He was doing the most important job in history (redeeming the world), and although He knew that He had only a few years to do it, He never ran.
• He made time to consider the flowers and the birds of the air. He had time to put his hands on the little children and bless them. Time was His friend.
• Have you ever wondered why didn’t the Father allowed Jesus to live until aged 60? He would have 30 years on earth to do more miracles and good deeds. Isn’t that nice? The answer is it was not necessary. The mission can be completed in 3 years. Staying on serve no purpose.
• Why do you want to stay on foreign soil when the war is over?
We need to live a purpose-driven life. What is important is not the length of time, but what we put into that time. Is our time purposeful or purpose-filled?
How can I make time my friend? Let’s read Psalm 90:1-4, 10, 12.
Let’s use the four letters in the word TIME to help us remember.
(1) TREASURE IT – Plan Your Time
Make time our friend, not our enemy. We often say we are fighting against time.
• Let’s be proactive – plan the use of our time.
• If Jesus can, without a watch, without a PDA or an iPhone, I think we can do better.
• God says we should treasure time as a valuable commodity. We usually number our years – celebrates birthday, anniversary – but here it says to ’number our days’.
• Every day is so precious we should treasure it and plan to use it wisely.
Rev Koh shared this illustration at the retreat
To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the businessman whose flight was delayed an hour.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask the man who had the heart attack in the restaurant.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask the person who barely missed a head-on collision in a car accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the Olympic swimmer who missed qualifying by 0.1 second.
You can make more money but you cannot make more time. Treasure it by planning your day.
• 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’s unrecoverable. When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection."
The next letter in TIME is: (2) INVEST – Spend it on People
If time is always moving and you cannot slow it down or add more to it, then we cannot really SAVE time. We can only INVEST it.
• It’s not like money, you can save it. If you don’t use it, it is still in the bank. But you cannot save time. If you don’t use it, you lose it. FOREVER!
• In the early 1970s Jim Croce wrote a song that said, “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do, is to save every day ‘till eternity passes away – just to spend them with you.” Nice words. A few months after he wrote this song, he was killed in a plane crash in Louisiana at the age of 30. You cannot hold on to time.
So INVEST it. Where? In relationships, in people. Why? Because that’s eternal.
• Everything else is temporary and will pass away.
• At a graduation commencement at his alma mater, Wheaton College, Billy Graham said: “Time is the capital that God has given us to invest. People are the stocks in which we are to invest our time, whether they’re blue chips or penny stocks or even junk bonds.”
• Whether they are VIPs or just some insignificant others, or even ’unworthy’ ones, we are called to invest our time in people’s lives – those who are lost needs the Gospel, those who are hurting needs comfort, those who are weak, needs help.
• Actually where you invest your time reveals what is most important to you. If you spend 5 hours on the computer and only 5 minutes talking with a friend, it means that friend is worth less than a computer.
Invest in people, in relationships, because they last forever.
• This is something I need to remind myself too. I love to spend time reading and studying, but that cannot be the most important things in life. We can become so "spiritual that we are of no earthly good".
• A diligent worker is admirable, but what is the point of working so hard… on the job, one his computer, when at the end of the day, none of these counts for eternity?
• You won’t find any of these in heaven, but the lost souls that you shared Christ, the brother whom you have encouraged, the loved one whom you cared about, and the poor that you have helped – they are there!
The next letter in TIME is: (3) MANAGE – Prioritize Your Choices
Have you heard of the illustration about putting rocks, pebbles, sand into a jar, and the time-management expert asked, "Is the jar full?"
He placed a large, clear jar in front of the group. He put seven or eight large rocks into the jar until it was full. “Is the jar full?” He asked. Everyone nodded.
Then he took pebbles and filled up the jar with the small stones until they reached the rim. “Is the jar full?” By now, they didn’t answer.
So, he poured fine sand in. “Is the jar full?” Some nodded. He proceeded to take a pitcher of water and filled up the jar again.
“What’s the lesson here?” he asked. Someone said, “No matter how busy you are you can always fit more things into your schedule.”
’Wrong.” he replied.
“The lesson is, unless you put the big rocks in first, they will never fit in. You must figure out what the big rocks are for you.”
Only when you put them in this right order can you make it.
Identify the big rocks in your life, and hold on to them.
• If you don’t put those big rocks in first and let small pebbles to go in, you will have no room for the big rocks. The important things will be kept out of your life.
• It is not so much about managing time, but managing yourself – your choices.
In his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes: "Time management is a misleading concept. You can’t really manage time. You can’t delay it, speed it up, save it or lose it. No matter what you do time keeps moving forward at the same rate. The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves."
• Be proactive in managing your choices. There will be many conflicting interests and demands fighting for the same 24 hours you have.
• You need to make a choice – to be clear what THE ROCKS are and hold on to them.
There is a song - “The Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin, and a part of it says:
“My child arrived just the other day. He came to the world in the usual way.
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away.
He was talking before I knew it, and as he grew. He said, “I’m going to be like you, Dad. You know I’m going to be like you.”
My son turned ten just the other day. He said, “Thanks for the ball, now come on let’s play. Can you teach me to throw?” I said.
“Not today, I’ve got a lot to do.” He said, “That’s OK.”
And he walked away and he smiled and he said “You know I’m going to be like you, Dad, you know I’m going to be like you.”
The final verse says:
I’ve long since retired and my son’s moved away. I called him up just the other day.
I said, “I’d like to see you, if you don’t mind.” He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I could find the time.
You see, my new job’s a hassle and the kids have the flu, but it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad. It’s been real nice talking to you.”
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, he’d grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.
Here’s the rest of the story: Harry Chapin’s wife, Sandy, actually wrote the words to that song after their son Josh was born.
• It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. When their son was 7, Harry was performing 200 concerts a year and Sandy asked him when he was going to take some time to be with his son.
• Harry promised to make some time at the end of the summer. He never made it. That summer, a truck hit Harry’s Volkswagen and he was killed.
The final letter in TIME is: (3) ENJOY – Find Fulfilment in Doing God’s Will
There will always be something else you can do, there will always be somewhere else you can be, but when you are investing your time wisely and do worthwhile things, you are going to ENJOY it.
• Look at Jesus. True fulfilment comes when you are living right in the centre of God’s will and doing God’s will.
• I cannot envisage God giving us time on earth (Jesus called abundant life) for us to live through miserably. It is definitely something worthwhile and satisfying.
• But that kind of life can only comes through a God’s purpose-driven life! So be determined to ENJOY your time on earth by DOING GOD’S WILL and FINISH IT WELL.
• At the end of the day, you will not carry a sense of regret. You will feel happy for a time well-spent.
Bryan Wilkerson, the Senior Pastor at Grace Chapel shared this:
I will never forget a funeral I attended many years ago for the brother of a colleague of mine.
The man who passed away was a Christian man — bright, hardworking, and dynamic. He died before his time, somewhere in his late 50’s. His funeral was held at the church he attended.
One by one people came to the platform to praise this man and honour his accomplishments. He had great administrative gifts and helped to start two new hospitals in the area. He was a soccer enthusiast. He helped to start the local soccer association. He introduced many coaches and players to the sport and travelled the world as its ambassador. He took great pride in his Welsh heritage, joined societies, and sang in chorals. He was obviously a man of remarkable energy, passion, ability, and influence.
But one thing was missing from the words of praise and the list of accomplishments — the name of Christ. Not one of the people who came to the microphone spoke of his faith, or of any spiritual influence he had on their lives. He introduced many people to soccer, but few, if any, to Christ. None of the organizations or causes he championed or supported was Christian in their mission. No one from the church came up to speak of his leadership or service in the congregation. And the pastor who led the service could say nothing of his contributions to the church except that he often critiqued the sermon at the door. None of his children had words of praise and thanks to offer, nor did his wife, for they often got the short end of his attention and energy.
This man’s life was not evil, nor was it pointless. He accomplished many good things and enriched the lives of people and communities. But he missed the opportunity to do it for Christ — to advance His name and His kingdom and His glory. Few of those people or accomplishments would follow him into eternity. He introduced many people to soccer, but few to the Kingdom.
I couldn’t help but imagine what such a man might have done for the kingdom if only he had offered his time and talent to God, and asked what God would have him do with them.
Looking down at you, I am very glad that all of you are serving the Lord and doing well. I really thank God for you. I thank God that you are in this church.
• Let us TREASURE our time here, we want to HOLD ON to the ROCKS – the important things that God wants us to do, and PRIORITIZE our choices well, so that at the end of the day, we can say we have truly ENJOYED every moment of it!
• Let us continue to be good stewards of God’s gift of the time we have on earth.
