Time is....ticking away

At church today, our pastor started a sermon series called "Rust." He took the title from Matthew 6, the passage that says "Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven..." Not an exact quote but I'm too lazy to get my Bible out at the moment!

Pastor ___ (believe it or not I actually just forgot my pastor's name) was talking about (Oh yeah it's Tim! Sorry...), well he was talking about how awesome it is that God allows us to use physical/earthly things to build up that treasure in heaven. And not only that, but he commands us to build up treasure there. Kinda seems like the opposite of what we've always been taught, not to "hoard" and stuff...

He said we'll be talking about several ways to use earthly means to build up this heavenly treasure--this week we talked about: 1 guess...TIME. A little ironic that I just had this on my heart (yesterday's blog)? I think not! Proof positive that God speaks to you anywhere, anyway, anyhow. He CARES about you and me!!! It's so amazing.

The sermon pretty much cracked me up, because it was almost word for word what God had said to me last night during my whining. Pastor Tim talked about 3 misconceptions we have when it comes to TIME. I'd like to share them with you because I think they were awesome.

1. We don't have ENOUGH time. The truth is, we all get the same amount of time in our day. We might not have the same number of days in our lives, but we all get the same 24 hours...and we have enough time to do the things God has called us to do. It's a matter of us making those things a priority, and where I use my time shows the world what I really value to be important.
2. It's OUR time. The days and weeks we have do not belong to us. We were bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20). We were saved to live for Christ (2 Cor 5:14-15)...so the hours we use to fill our days should be used to honor God.
3. We'll have MORE time. It's an easy thing to forget that our lives are fleeting...everyone is appointed to die and no one knows when that time will be. We need to understand what the Lord's will is and then be under the influence of God's Spirit. (James 4:15, Eph 5:15-18)

Then he did this illustration (This is originally by Stephen Covey in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and this video is of him, I believe) that proves that when you fill your day with the Big Rocks first (Big Rocks being The Important Things That Matter for Eternity)...you'll always have enough room for the little rocks (all the day to day things that absolutely must get done--eating, sleeping, cleaning, working, etc). I've seen the illustration more than once, but it always amazes me to see it again. Stephen Covey talks about other, more work-related stuff, but the same application can be used when thinking about eternal vs earthly stuff.

I've definitely been struggling with time management lately. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed, honestly, when I think about the demands on my time or my day. But I've started really asking God for help and I'm trying to fit the Big Rocks in first. Time with God, time with Marc, time with kids, work, rest. Everything else I'm just fitting into the holes left over. It's not perfect and I don't do it right every day...but what a difference already!

And for fun, I leave you with this video. Because I know all of you DC Talk fans immediately thought of it anyway when you read my blog title.

The first song is Walls, but skip to 2:25 to get that great song we all remember...