We often think of stewardship in terms of our finances and generosity. How are you using your resources? How are you investing your money? Are you generous? Are you wise? These are the questions that we typically ask ourselves, and these are great questions to answer.
Faithful stewardship certainly includes our resources and finances, BUT, stewardship involves much more than that. I believe that it would be revolutionary if we were able to take what we know about financial stewardship and apply it to other areas of our lives. For example, I want to consider our time.
Today, you have been given 1,440 minutes, and tomorrow you will be given another 1,440 minutes. This week, you will be given 10,080 minutes. This month, you are going to be given about 43,200 minutes. And this year… are you ready for this? This year, you will be given 525,600 minutes.
So, when this year comes to an end, what have you done with your 525,600? When this day comes to an end, what have you done with your 1,440?
Well, the average person annually spends about 175,200 minutes sleeping, 32,850 minutes eating, about 175,200 minutes working, 14,600 minutes scrolling through your Facebook feed, and about 87,600 minutes watching TV.
Well, that leaves 40,150 minutes remaining. That leaves you only 7% of your time remaining…
Now of course, this does not include time with friends and family, church, hobbies, working out, your kids sports, grocery shopping, or any of the other things that we do in life, right?
Does anyone else see the problem here?
Is there any wonder why we often feel trapped in our life? Is there any wonder why we often struggle to find purpose in our life? Is there any wonder why we struggle to connect with community, or why we struggle to find time for friends? Its because our 525,600 is already accounted for, and we literally do not have the time.
But, what if we didn’t have to lead the “average” life? What if we were able to make wise investments with our time? What if we treated our calendar like we do our budget? What if we took some of the wise financial principles that we know, and we applied them to our time?
Here are a couple of ways that we can do this:
First, cut the fat.
If you were struggling month to month financially, and you were to look at your budget and notice that you are spending 60% of your monthly income on entertainment, of course you would need to make an adjustment, right? You would need to “cut some of the fat” off the budget. Well, if you are struggling month to month with your time, look at your calendar and cut some fat. The average american spends approximately 40minutes a day scrolling through Facebook and approximately 3.95 hours a day watching TV. Cut the fat, because your time is valuable. I am NOT saying TV is evil, but culturally, we are the most entertained yet busy people the world has ever known. Cut the fat.
Second, be value-driven.
What are your values? When you are working on your family budget, your numbers need to reflect your values. For example, if you value healthy eating, your budget needs to reflect that value… Taco bell, although inexpensive, won’t compliment that value too well. The same is true with your time. Does your calendar reflect your values? For example, do you say that you value community? Well, someone should be able to look at your calendar and see that value represented through the way that you spend your time. Your calendar should be value-driven.
Third, be generous.
Generosity is incredibly important. Financially, generosity will ground you. It will keep you focussed on others. It will provide purpose, and it will bring incredible joy into your life. Well, the same is true with our time. Are you generous with your time? It can be significantly easier to be generous with our money than it is with our time because too many of us simply have no minutes left to give. In order to be generous with our money, it helps to work it into our budget, right? Well, in order to be generous with our time, it helps to work it into our calendar. Your calendar should include blocks of time for potential generosity.
Overall, I hope that my calendar can become an instrument of my worship to God. I have some growth still to do in this area, but faithful stewardship is often more of a journey than a destination. I encourage you to join me on this journey.