Saving Time

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Driving offers so many ways to practice patience, doesn’t it? It feels so good when you hit all the green lights just right, but I will often go out of my way to avoid traffic lights because of their annoying tendency to turn red. I figure I can save a little time going one or two streets over where there’s a four-way stop instead.

Recently I decided to time a few stop lights while I sat there waiting. (If you have to wait, you might as well do something productive.) You know what I found? At least in Paris, TN, most stop lights last about 30 seconds, 35 max. Yep, that’s right. Thirty seconds. About the same amount of time it takes to drive two streets over to the four-way stop.

Jim Croce sang about saving time in a bottle, but if I could do that, I would probably put the bottles on the shelf, save them up for something really important, and then die before I used any of them. Imagine that episode of Hoarders!

Time is a commodity, just like money. We spend it; we invest it; we even buy it. We don’t ever want to lose it or waste it. We talk a lot about saving it, but the thing is, we can’t really save time; we can only choose to spend it here instead of there. We certainly can’t earn it. Time just is what it is. It follows a perfectly predictable formula. Some might say money does too, but that formula is a mystery to most of us. With time, we are all in the same boat. We all have 24 hours in a day. Yet, just as with money management, some are much more successful in their time management.

Ephesians 5:15-17 says, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” The Apostle Paul says here that we can “redeem” time, another currency concept. If I don’t redeem a coupon, it’s wasted. If I’m about to throw away a broken-down piece of furniture, you might be one of those creative people who can redeem it by turning it into a beautiful piece of artwork. God does that with us. We can do that, in a sense, with time. Time we’ve wasted in the past is gone, but we can re-purpose in our hearts to use our future time more wisely.

I love how the Amplified Classic version, with all of its notes and parenthetical helps, renders Colossians 4:5:
Behave yourselves wisely [living prudently and with discretion] in your relations with those of the outside world (the non-Christians), making the very most of the time and seizing (buying up) the opportunity.

This isn’t about saving thirty seconds by avoiding a red light. This is about eternal souls! Paul is talking about investing time in people and in efforts to bring them to Christ. Such efforts are never a waste.

In fact, any time invested in relationships is time well-spent. Because our culture is so tied to work and paychecks and financial success, we sometimes have the mistaken idea that it’s a waste of time to spend a Saturday afternoon playing ninja pirates or tea party with our kids or taking a leisurely walk around the neighborhood holding hands with our spouse. In our busy-ness, it’s difficult to ignore the pull of our to-do lists.

Maybe this is why God invented sleep, or the need to eat. There are times for hard work, but sometimes slowing down to rest and relate with others is the best use of time.

One thing is clear from both of the passages cited above: the way we use our time is very closely related to wisdom. It’s easy to waste time; it takes no thought or effort. If we want to use our time wisely, we’ll need to be intentional about it. We may not be able to “save” time, but we can redeem it!

Dear God, I thank you for the time You have given me in this life. Help me to use it wisely as a good steward, investing in the things that really matter to You. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

by Christie Cole Atkins