Time management – we seem to never find enough minutes in the day, am I right? Let’s talk about our trend towards busy. 

Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

3:14-15 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

“How are you doing?”

“Busy, good but busy.”

How often do we have that exchange during the week? I hear it between teachers in offices and in conversations students share walking through the halls. The world around us places so much self-worth and value onto the idea of being busy. Have you seen the meme – the one about rest, good grades, and a social life – pick three because you can’t enjoy all of those while in college? It rests in the idea of our busy lifestyle is something to brag and boast about. Even in moments we don’t brag about our busy existence, we get trapped into comparing our schedules to those around us. We qualify ourselves based upon the quantity of time spent “busy.” You may be thinking, “well Meredith I am busy so back off.” I don’t doubt you fill your time with activities and work – some fun, some necessary. Is your schedule filled with things your called to do or wired to enjoy? Or filled with things for the sake of staying busy, not being alone, or creating a value of yourself through achievements?

I find myself guilty of all of the above. When I first began teaching I valued myself as an instructor by how busy I could be – crafting lesson plans, developing activities, adding on new projects, saying yes to things (even if they weren’t in my lane), leading committees, teaching for other schools part-time (while teaching full-time), volunteering to serve in my community, and simply packing my schedule filled with stuff and not necessarily things intended for my role in this place. I was about 5-years into teaching when I recognized this would not be sustainable and to survive a career in education, I need to throttle back – know my lane and work well there.

One I began to focus my efforts on my lane, then comparison would step-in. While my schedule still stayed full, just more focused, when I would hear others complain about full-days and not having time to do anything else, but leave at 4:00pm every day – my thoughts wouldn’t (and often still don’t) go to a place of contentment for their decision. How can you not have time for this — I am doing this AND all these other things! Ugly thoughts create ugly moods.

Managing your time in college as a teacher or as a student – or at any point in your life – can look messy, challenging, and overwhelming. The cliche is true though – time is a gift and it is something we can steward well.

So when do you rest? When do you set aside time to spend with Christ, trusting that the time you spend there will be returned to you in abundance? In the United States, we put such commercial value on time as a non-renewable resource, we allow our human knowledge to supersede the power of an almighty God. I promise, you can do more in 6-days with God than you can do in 7-days without.

Even looking at the God of the universe as he created us, created Creation, on the seventh day he rested. I am pretty positive nothing we work on this week requires such effort we can’t pause. We are wired to work and we are wired to rest. But nothing we do can add or take away from the glory already done by God. As you enter young adulthood, so many things will compete for time on your schedule: work, school, family, friends, fun, health… it is easy for us to lose sight of how we spend our time.

Evaluate how you use your time this week – keep track of how you spend every moment. You can find a tracker sheet at Fringe Hours. Use it. Be honest and look for patterns. Are there things holding your time captive that don’t truly pour into your growth or rest? For me, that downfall was (sometimes still is) screen time. I could spend so much time staring mindlessly at the tv. Turning into a zombie on the couch isn’t something that really restores my soul like being outside, learning something new, writing, bible study, or spending time with friends. Seeing the amount of time being held hostage by an activity that didn’t give me life turned my daily schedule upside down. Writing down each 30-minute block staring at a screen convicted me to turn Netflix off and pick-up something else.

Steward your time – do your work well for 6 days and on the 7th – rest. In working diligently with focus for 6-days, you’ll be amazed at the peace you find on the 7th. Trust him in all things – even your time.

Let’s do something together! For the next few weeks, join me as I work my way through the Seamless bible study again! I’ll post bullet point notes and share FREE study guides I created to help me really study the valuable content developed by Angie Smith!

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