I was in a men's small group discussion about our new year's resolutions. We were asked to come up with and share one word for the year, a word that would sum up our personal goals and pursuits for the next few months. There were many great words like focus, family, faith, service, availability but as we went around the group sharing, there seemed to be a common struggle that everyone was addressing. The biggest obstacle to achieving our goals was busyness. Almost every man wanted more time to read his Bible, pray, serve, spend time with family and the excuse was that there just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do what we all deemed "vital" to our joy, health and quality of life.Everyone seems to be busy now days. Even my 89 year old dad complains about not having enough time to get done what needs to be done each day. But busyness is not the problem. How we manage our time is the issue. I know that It's become even harder in today's high tech, faced paced world to carve out time for God. It's ironic because we thought all these hi tech gadgets would give us more time. Instead it seems to be just the opposite. We can easily get pulled away from the very important activities by the tyranny of the urgent. Our co-workers and friends have instant access to us by way of smart phones and we become slaves to our computers. But we don't have to be controlled by all of this. It's just a matter of the will and priorities.
We can use those same tools that make us busy to manage our time and accomplish the vital. There are countless Bible reading apps and programs for your smart devices that will help you be consistent in a devotional time. You can listen to the audio Bible, podcasts, or Bible studies in your car to and from work each day. You can set a timer to go off periodically on your phone to remind you to stop and say a prayer. Yes, we can overcome our busy, out of kilter life if we so choose. Busyness should not be an excuse. We have the ability and time to do whatever we really need to do if we set our priorities and make time for them.
Jesus set the example of one who had to accomplish his father's will in an incredibly short amount of time. And yet Jesus took time to be with the father and to get away from the demands of the crowds to spend time alone in prayer. On the night Jesus died in his great prayer of John 17 he said to his Father, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do".
We can accomplish God's will also without sacrificing the "vitals". Actually we can't do the Father's will without it. The graphic is a great tool to help prioritize our time. The four boxes categorize our time. Most people spend a majority of their time in boxes III and IV. Box II is the one we neglect the most and it is the most important. Here are are some steps to take to help manage your time and accomplish the life you really desire.
* Decide what and who is important. Outline what is vital, your priorities. These are usually things in box II, those that are not urgent, like prayer and Bible study, personal development and family time.
* Discover where your time goes. Make an inventory of the activities that you do each day and which categories they fall into to. Making a list and then color coding activities to the box categories is a good way to visualize where you spend most of your time.
* Get into a routine of spending a certain amount of time each day on the "vitally important" things.
* To achieve this, cut back on the things in box III, those that are not important and not urgent, like watching tv, surfing the Internet or playing video games.
* Don't allow the not important but urgent distractions (box IV) like email, texts and phone calls to interrupt your quality time. Put your phone away while you are spending time with your children, spouse or friend.
* Use your high tech tools to help you spend more time in box II.
* Find someone to hold you accountable.
The new year brings new opportunities. What is your one word for the year?
