Well, here we are. We made it to the year 2015. I’ve written the number 2015 several times already and am getting use to it. So we’re in the month of January. The Romans gave it the name
January after their god, Janus, who had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. And that’s a good exercise for us today as we talk about stresses of time. Look back at 2014. Did you ever have a time this last year when the clock was your enemy, where you were stressed because you had too many things to do and there just wasn’t enough time to get it all done?
Did you ever have a moment like this?
Or a week like this?
Racing to stay on top of the clock.
That’s enough looking back. Let’s put that out of our minds and look forward into 2015. Would you like to do better with time stress? We have more time-saving devices than any other generation in human history, so we should be easily in control of our time. But we’re not. We ought to be able to do better.
I don’t know how to guarantee that you will never face time pressure in 2015. That’s going to come, especially if you are diligent to try to make good use of your time. I know I’ve never figured out how to avoid time pressure, myself. And a pastor’s job always has more things you would like to do than time allows. But I’ve found some things that help to cope with the stress.
And to get us started, listen to the word of God from the Apostle Paul’s le
tter to the Ephesians, chapter 5, verses 10-20.
10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; 13 but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." 15 Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20 giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In verses 15 and 16, Paul reminds us to be careful how we live, making the most of the time. God gives each one of us a certain number of years and days and hours on this earth. That’s our time. It’s a precious gift. He calls us to make the most of it.
When we read the phrase, “making the most of the time,” that’s a fine translation. But the Greek word has a flavor of a little more struggle than that. Have you noticed that sometimes it’s a battle to make good use of your time? Have you noticed that it sometimes costs a lot to make good use of the time? This is the reason that I first started thinking of going to seminary. I wanted to learn Greek so I could go deeper into the words that the New Testament writers chose for us. Paul’s word here is exagoradzo.
Its two words put together. It starts with “ex” like in our word for exit, to go out. The second word is from the Greek word “agora,” the word for the market where you shop. So the literal meaning would be to pay the price to get something from the store. And you can’t read everything literally, but you’ll recognize that we pay a price for making good use of our time. You have to go looking for what you really need, what’s important, grab it, pay a price for it, bag it and carry it out of the hustle and bustle of the marketplace. It can be hard. It takes time management skills and time management work.
And so this morning I want to talk about two time management skills to practice in the coming year. I can’t guarantee that you’ll never be pressed for time if you use them. But they can make a big difference in coping with time stress.
The first management skill is to manage the tasks that you do. You cannot do it all. Let’s say it together. “I can’t do it all.” So we all have to manage which tasks we are going to take on.
I have a friend who does a lot of counseling and he says that he often has people who come to him overwhelmed, depressed, feeling like they just can’t cope with all the things they need to do. And he gives them a simple assignment. Go home. Write a list of the things that need doing. Just do one of those tasks and stop. And then come back and we’ll talk about what’s next. And he said that they never come back reporting that they did just one job. Once they pulled all the things they needed to do out of the tangled mess in their brains and wrote them down on a list on paper it all looked much more manageable. And then they picked out one thing that was doable. And when they did that one thing it felt so good and focused on some other doable things, they all cheated and did 2 or 3 or 4 more things. And they felt so much better when they came back next week.
I live by lists or I would go crazy. I might come close to going crazy even with my lists, but so far so good.
And let me add one more thing to do with your list. Go through it and mark the things that will make the most difference when you complete them and mark them with a “1,” the really important things. Those are the things that you want to start with. Keep in mind what is really important. “If you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.”
Here’s a highway with no end in sight. It seems to be going nowhere. You could drive it at 55 mph or 85. But what do you accomplish by driving 80 miles an hour, tense when you don’t know where you are going?
Pick out a few, most important things in life and keep your sights set on them.
And after you identify the really important tasks, then pick out the things that really should be done, but they aren’t the most important. Mark them with a “2.” We all have lots of good things we could do and we want to do. And do them once you have taken care of your “1s,” or when you have a gap in your time that fits them well.
And then there are the things that somebody else figures you ought to do or you’ve always done before, but they are really losing their usefulness. Mark them with a “3.” And then scratch them off your list. And enjoy doing it. If you don’t pull out the weeds in your life, they will prevent the garden of your life from ever producing anything worthwhile.
You can’t say “yes” to the best things in life without saying “no” to a whole lot of good things.
And talking about the best things, let’s go back to our scripture and verse 17, where Paul tells us “So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Finding God’s will for your life is a huge topic all by itself, but, to be very brief, if you want to find the best things for your life, who do you ask? Ask God. Ask God each morning what he wants you to make of your day. Don’t ask him to be your slave and deliver what you want. Ask what he wants. And if you keep doing that and following through on God’s will for your life, he will lead you to good things better than you could ever have come up with yourself.
My experience is that many, many times, I have asked God what I should do and many, many times that led me into adventures, doing things I would have been afraid to do, things that wouldn’t even occur to me to do on my own, things that are really worth getting out of bed for in the morning, things that stretched me no end. And now I look back and it’s been so good.
So the first thing to manage under time stress is the list of tasks you take on. You can’t do everything.
But there is another very important management skill that we all need, especially in our culture. Efficiency experts might call it managing your energy. I’ll call it caring for your soul.
At home I have a paper shredder. I am the registrar for the Rockford District Committee on Ministry and one of my jobs is to keep the files of about 20 people who are either serving today as local pastors or are in the process of preparing for ordination. And they go through a long process with a lot of work and documentation. And when they move up and are ordained, then I forward some of their paper work to the Board of Ordained Ministry, but one day I had a big stack of papers that needed to be shredded. And my shredder worked great for about 10 minutes. And then it just stopped. It was close to overheating. So I had to give it a few minutes to cool off, to recover.
Can anyone here identify with that? My paper shredder has the sense to stop when its getting overwhelmed. How about us?
If you are in the neighborhood somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 you might see me taking my dog for a walk around the block. I might say that its for the dog, and she does deserve it. But its also because its hard mental work to prepare a sermon and there comes a point where I need to step back and let all the clutter clear out.
Once upon a time there was a woodchopper
who had so much work to do they he just couldn’t stop to sharpen his axe. Did he ever catch up? He worked harder and harder. And his axe got duller and duller. And he got farther and farther behind.
Good time management is much more than figuring out how to cram more things into your day. Good time management requires doing the important things and taking care of your soul.
Remember the sabbath? The Hebrew word Shabbot means literally “to cease,” “to stop.” When our culture thinks about keeping a Sabbath we are likely to call that legalism and a waste of time.
How many of us need a day for just rest and renewal?
In the 23rd Psalm, King David was going through something difficult and yet when he looked for what God wanted of him, he discovered. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul.
Some people may think it’s a waste of time, but one of the best pastoral practices I have found is to get away sometimes on my day off and hike on the levees down by the Mississippi. And the clutter in my head from a thousand things that need to be done slowly, usually unconsciously gets untangled. The number 1 tasks start to float to the top again and the number 3 tasks start to sink out of sight. My sense of wonder is restored as I search for those bright flashes of color of whichever birds are migrating through at the time and listen for their calls. That restores my soul. It puts it back the way it ought to be.
Once Sherlock Holmes was in the middle of one of his most difficult cases. A serial killer was loose in London and they had no clue how to stop him. The mayor was pressuring the police chief and the police chief was pressuring Holmes to solve the mystery.
In the middle of it all, Holmes said, “Watson, we’re going to the concert tonight.” And Watson said, “Holmes, how can you do that? There’s a serial killer on the loose. There’s no time for just sitting there listening to music.” But they went. And Holmes was deeply immpersed in the music.
But about halfway through the concert he leaned over to Watson and he said “I’ve got it.”
Our best, deepest, richest thinking does not come when we are running in the ratrace. The best, deepest, richest thinking comes when we have nourished our souls. Music can be really good for that.
Jesus was able to do a whole lot more good things than I can do. And his ministry was way more important than mine. But he was always pulling away to pray. And if Jesus needed to pull away for peace and quiet and time in prayer, how much more do we?
And when the day comes that there really is too much to do, if your soul is healthy and strong you can go through the crisis and really help. But if you have let your soul go dry, shallow and frazzled, when the crisis comes you’ll probably panic and make it worse.
What restores our souls? Rest is important. God gives his beloved sleep.
I started a habit of studying the Bible many, many years ago, trying to learn to see the world through God’s eyes and listening for what he might be saying to me. And it still renews my soul and helps me keep my life in focus.
Worship renews me, to push the clutter of the week out of my mind and just focus on God. And everything starts falling into place.
Exercise renews me. When our bodies are stressed they create stress chemicals that permeate our muscles so we can be ready for fight or flight. Exercise cleans those stress chemicals out. I usually go up to the Y and swim a half mile twice a week. And there have been times when I sit at my desk agonizing with how to approach a sermon or a church project and I can’t figure it out. But then I’m halfway down my lane in the the pool and the answer just pops into my head.
What renews your soul? I’ve never heard anyone say, Oh, I veged out watching TV all day today and now I feel great. I’ve never heard anyone say that they have been feeling sorry for themselves or obsessing about someone who irritates them all day and now they are so refreshed.
Stay away from those things. Make time for a Sabbath rest. Make time to nurture your soul. Make time for the things that renew you.
In verses 15 and 16, Paul reminds us to be careful how we live, making the most of the time.
Let’s make this year of 2015 a rich and rewarding year. And that can happen as we are careful to invest our time in doing the tasks that really matter. And as we invest in really caring for our souls. AMEN
