How to Use Time Wisely

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We all want a life that works.

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We buy books, we listen to podcasts,

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and we follow gurus who promise the secret to what we crave:

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a life full of meaning, connection, fun and adventure.

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We look to those who have done well before us

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and we ask ourselves, how can I get some of that?

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We seek knowledge and understanding,

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but we need something deeper.

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We need wisdom.

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The Bible gives us a path to wisdom

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laid out in three Old Testament books,

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often called the Wisdom Literature.

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Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job are the roadmap

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to understanding where godly wisdom comes from

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and what God has to say about how to live our lives well.

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- Welcome to Crossroads.

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I'm Griff, and my job here is to help you

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build and be the church wherever you are.

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Today on Crossroads, we're talking about wisdom,

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not the kind of wisdom that TikTok or Facebook might offer,

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but real, lasting, godly wisdom.

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What is it? How do I get it?

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And what makes godly wisdom different from worldly wisdom?

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Well, coming up, Chuck is going to unpack for us

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how to use our time wisely.

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But first, we're going to start off with some music together.

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And these songs are songs that help us

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say things to God and about God.

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So why don't you use this time to kind of

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re-center your heart and your mind around Him?

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I think it's a wise choice.

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So turn up the volume, go full screen and let's get started.

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- Loud like you did. Let's sing like this.

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- There you go.

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- Sing this with me.

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- Come on, sing it again.

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- Jesus, we're so grateful.

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Father God, we're so grateful.

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So grateful that you would make a way that

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we could sing right now in this moment

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that you would hear us, and not just hear us, but draw near.

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Come near to us.

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I'm grateful for Your Grace.

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I'm grateful for your kindness to me.

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No one else and nothing else deserves

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the depth of gratitude like you do.

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And so I say with my heart, even with my mouth,

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whether we sound good or don't sound good,

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whatever it may be, you don't care. You want our hearts.

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And so with our hearts, we say, and I say I'm grateful.

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You're worthy. You are king of my heart.

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Thank you for being the author of time,

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for things lost that you're redeeming,

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that you're taking back.

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You are the hope that I follow,

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the hope I believe in and the hope I want more of.

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Thank you, Jesus.

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I pray all this because of you. Amen.

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Yeah.

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- If we've never met, my name is Justin,

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and Greg said it earlier.

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Maybe you walked in a little late.

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Maybe you believe those words, or you don't.

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You're in the right place no matter where you stand on that.

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And I want you to know where you are

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you're surrounded by people who walk in similar shoes,

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saying yes to Jesus, yes to the life

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and the joy that he's brought.

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That's why we sing like this,

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whether we sound good or don't. Right?

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Can I get an amen on that? Right.

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So, hey, before you grab a seat,

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turn to somebody and we'll just break where we've been

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and just break from that for a moment.

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Turn to somebody and say,

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"Here's my favorite Reds player."

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All right? Let's do that.

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If you say the Cubs, you get smacked.

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If you say a Cub or a St. Louis Cardinal, you might get smacked.

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Some of you, I know, said I don't know a player

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and that's great. You're in the right place too.

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Hey, today we are talking about being wise with your time

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and we have a ton of opportunities around this place

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to help you do just that.

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- So we're on our way

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to a job site where a village needs fresh water.

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Fresh water means good drinking,

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means less disease, means longer life.

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So we're ready to bust the dirt down, backfill it,

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and help this village sustain itself.

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I am being pushed.

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I haven't -- I haven't dug in solid rock since college

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working at a grunt laborer job.

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So I got to wear work gloves.

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There was a day when I didn't need gloves

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because I had real calluses.

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Now I'm a weenie boy who sits behind a desk every day,

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so I'm being pushed not to get calluses by using a glove.

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Doing this work, people think it's about the muscles.

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It's about the attitude.

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You see these folks from Nicaragua,

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which everyone has bigger muscles than them,

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but they have greater work ethic than everybody. Yeah?

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It's the attitude. Yeah.

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A lot of people get really discouraged

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being dirty and sweaty,

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or not having makeup on or not having your deodorant

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or whatever it is, but there are a bunch of good folk.

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I'm digging it big time.

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You go on a Go Trip because it gets you

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outside of what you know in your normal life.

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Your normal life is getting you as far as you can currently go.

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If you want to go farther,

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you have to get outside of the normal.

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A Go Trip is one of the things

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that gets you outside the normal,

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stretches you, pushes you.

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It gives you actually capacity muscles

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you didn't have beforehand that you can apply

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to your normal day to day life.

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And you help people, like these people.

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You help people here.

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All these people are going to have water

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and less disease as a result of our work.

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And everyone who's working here is going to feel closer to God.

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So that's what you should do a Go Trip.

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- Thanks for joining us today.

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Even from watching that video, you can see that

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Crossroads is way more than just watching a service once a week.

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We're a community of people who are on a mission together.

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We're trying to tackle big problems in the world,

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and we believe that it's up to us, the church,

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to go and make a difference around us.

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And that's why we take Go Trips.

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There are action packed adventures

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that are sure to leave you changed on the other side.

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It's going to grow you spiritually.

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It's going to push you outside of your comfort zone for sure.

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Does that sound like fun?

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Well, you can learn more or even sign up

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at Crossroads.net/go.

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I recently got to go to South Africa and,

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man, what an amazing experience.

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And what stuck out to me is to watch the way

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people around the world are sacrificing so much

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and living so passionately into taking care of others.

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And for me, when I came home, it really challenged me

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to say, how am I doing that in my life?

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And it helped me get to the next level.

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So whether it's supporting local or global initiatives,

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partnering with organizations that are dedicated

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to making a difference or just investing in the church,

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when we give, we're making a difference

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in our local community and around the world.

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If you want to learn more about why we give

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or how we give, or if you want to give yourself,

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you can head to Crossroads.net/give.

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As I said before, we have Chuck Mingo here today

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teaching us about how godly biblical wisdom

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can impact the way we use our time.

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So let's jump right in.

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- Thousands of years ago, in light of viewing

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that all of history is God's story,

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Moses penned these words in Psalm 90.

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He said, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place

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for all generations.

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Before the mountains were formed

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or before you ever formed the world and the earth

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from everlasting to everlasting, you are God."

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And there is something sacred.

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There's something holy about starting a conversation

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about time from this place,

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from the view of the One who made time,

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from the view of the One who made you,

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from the view of the One who loved you

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and put you in a place and a time to seek Him, to know him.

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I love the line in the song that says that

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time is the ink inside of the pen that God is holding.

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So why don't we go to the author,

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to the writer of time to seek His wisdom today?

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God, I pray that as we spend the next half hour

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together unpacking your wisdom as it relates to

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this precious thing called time, that we would

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just stay in this place of awe and wonder

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of what you've made, that we get to exist in place in time,

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and what that means for our ability to connect with you

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and to be a part of the story that you're writing.

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So I pray for all of us that today we would get a glimpse

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into our role in your story.

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And I pray this in Jesus name.

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Amen. Amen.

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Well, how are you guys doing? [cheers]

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Good to see you. Good to see you.

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It's a good days here in the 'Nati,

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if you're in the Cincinnati area,

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it's good sports days, it's hot weather days.

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It's all kinds of stuff going on in the 'Nati.

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But I do want to just tell you,

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there is something powerful that happens in your life

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when you get outside of the norm and you go somewhere.

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You heard about the world impact experience.

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I just want to double click on that

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and say make time to be there on July 29th.

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Bring your family to be there on July 29th.

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Just this year alone, my family has experienced

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a Go Trip in Puerto Rico that's been deeply defining for us.

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It will definitely be a spiritual milestone.

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My son got baptized on that Go Trip.

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And then I'm going to Alabama and I know that

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that's also going to be a spiritual milestone.

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I've been to India, I've been to South Africa.

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I've had a chance to go and be a blessing

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and also go and be changed through Go Trips at Crossroads.

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And it's been pretty powerful.

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So even if you're not sure you want to do a trip,

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just put space on your calendar for July 29th

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to learn more about the work

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that God is inviting us into as a communion.

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Who knows? Who knows?

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Maybe you'll feel that ping and that call

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to step outside of your norm and make a difference.

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So we're talking about time today.

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And I was thinking about how there are

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certain scriptures in the Bible related to time

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that just have, you know, they've achieved

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popular cultural status, like, everybody knows

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about these scriptures, even if they don't know

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that they're from the Bible.

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One that comes to mind is Ecclesiastes 3:1.

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See if you've ever heard these words.

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For every thing there is a season

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and a time for every matter under heaven.

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How many people have heard those words before? Yes.

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Kids of the 60s think about the Birds.

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Every time they see that, they say, turn, turn, turn, right?

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So, I mean, that's kind of hit popular status.

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And yet I saw that verse come to life

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in a paradox this week, in a paradoxical way,

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how there is literally a time for everything in its season.

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It actually happened in Pennsylvania.

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I just got back last night from Pennsylvania.

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We had traveled there because the matriarch

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of Maria's family is Titiana, her aunt Anna,

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and she passed away. She passed away of cancer.

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And so huge loss for our family.

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I mean, man, I've been in Maria's life for 27 years.

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And in all that time, Titiana has just loomed large.

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She's was incredibly generous, just a wonderful woman.

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Her house was kind of the center house

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where everybody gathered.

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And so it was very fitting that after the funeral

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we found ourselves gathered at Titi's house.

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And it was really strange in some ways

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to not have her there because she's always been

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the center of the joy that we have

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when we come together as a family.

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And yet I saw how something as crazy as a TikTok challenge

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could take a family from the depths of sadness

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to incredible joy.

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So I don't know if you've heard about

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the skipping challenge on TikTok.

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Anybody heard of this? The skipping challenge.

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So apparently somebody somewhere recognized

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that as you get older, you forget how to skip.

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Now, some of you right now are like,

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"You know what, I think I could still skip.

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I'm not -- I'm not sure if I could still skip."

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You know, skipping like this. Right?

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So skipping, I just want you to know I can still skip,

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mainly because I -- mainly because I coach track.

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And one of the things I teach the girls to do

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or the boys to do is power skip.

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So that's probably kept me in in practice on skipping.

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But, but let me be clear, I learned from my family

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that some people have forgotten how to skip.

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Now, here's what was interesting.

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You know, you're at a funeral and you know,

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when you get together after the funeral

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at somebody's house for the meal, you know,

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people are kind of in their own worlds in some respects.

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There's some people having a conversation.

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The adults are having a conversation.

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Kids were outside playing.

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You know, teenagers were on their phones.

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I mean, it's just like normal family stuff happening.

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And yet this TikTok challenge, within a matter of ten minutes,

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brought together four generations for a half hour,

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no screens and tons of laughter

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as we recognize some people can skip,

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some people can't skip.

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So she started, my cousin Wanda actually initiated this,

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And she said, we're going to start with the older generation.

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So these are, you know, like 60 plus,

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70 plus in some respects.

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And it was amazing because most of them remembered how to skip.

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It was really impressive.

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So we watched them skip and of course, you're filming it all.

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Then we went to the next generation.

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This is the generation before me and Maria

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and kind of her cousins.

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And I'll just be honest, there are some people

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in that generation who have clearly forgotten how to skip.

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Really, and what makes it worse

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is they thought they were actually skipping.

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Like, you know, when you tell them they're not,

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like, actually, there's video evidence of this,

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video evidence of this because of course, we recorded it.

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But I cannot show you the video.

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I know, I know. But when I explain to you why,

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I'm sure you'll understand,

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because the person in question is my mother-in-law.

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That's -- So you understand.

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I appreciate my limbs the way that they are.

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I'd like to have a place to go when I go back

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to Bethlehem and PA and see her.

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And so I'm not going to show you that.

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But my mother-in-law,

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I don't know what she was doing, but it was not skipping.

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I'm just telling you it was --nit was not skipping.

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But it was amazing to me how in the midst of sadness,

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in the midst of loss, four generations came together

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and had this joyful moment over something as simple as skipping.

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Time is an amazing thing.

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And actually, if there's any big idea

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I want you to take away from today

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is that time is a sacred thing. Time is sacred.

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And that's why we need God's wisdom on how to use time well.

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And so we've been looking at the Wisdom Literature

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in this series, and those are the books that are captured

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as job Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

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But I'm actually going to divert from those books,

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and we're going to look at wisdom

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in the songbook of the Bible, the book of Psalms,

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and particularly Psalm 90.

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Psalm 90 is a song about the wise use of time.

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Actually one of the commentators on Psalm 90 put it this way:

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The reason that life is limited

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has to do with sin entering the world

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and death because of sin.

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So that's part of why we're in this situation of limited time.

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And then it says:

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To recognize the limitations of time,

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but also lean into God's wisdom on how to use it well.

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And that's what we're going to do today as we look at Psalm 90.

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In Psalm 90, we learn three things.

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We learn why time is sacred.

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We learn how to use time wisely.

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And then we learn how God's perspective on time

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can bring joy to our limited days.

00:36:17

So that's what we're going to look at today.

00:36:19

But I want to read all of Psalm 90, because I want you

00:36:21

to be familiar with this Wisdom Literature

00:36:23

that we're tapping into today.

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Psalm 90 reads this way:

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So it starts in the same place we did with that song,

00:36:40

the grandeur of God,

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and the fact that God has always existed.

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He exists beyond time. He's not limited by time.

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Then it says:

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Let me find my way here. I had to switch pages.

00:37:13

So after talking about the grandeur of God,

00:37:15

then the psalmist says, "Look, but our time is finite.

00:37:19

It's like grass that withers in the evening."

00:37:41

I love the honesty with which the Psalmist is confronting time

00:37:45

because time is filled with difficulty.

00:37:47

It's filled with suffering.

00:37:48

It's not all puppies and rainbows. It says:

00:37:58

So then it says, we need wisdom. So it says:

00:38:07

This is the cry because it's limited

00:38:09

and because it can be difficult, God, we need you.

00:38:11

And this is what the Psalmist is asking.

00:38:21

And I love this line, because I believe God does this.

00:38:46

This is a rich, rich text and it helps us see,

00:38:49

like I said, three things about time.

00:38:51

First, that time is sacred. Why is time sacred?

00:38:55

One of the reasons is because time is limited.

00:38:57

Time is limited.

00:38:59

This Psalm talks about that in Psalm 90:10-11 when it says:

00:39:13

Time is sacred because time is limited.

00:39:16

And that's true in the macro, the big picture of life.

00:39:19

But it's also true in the micro.

00:39:22

It's interesting, this was written thousands of years ago

00:39:26

and does anybody want to take a guess or do you know

00:39:28

what the average life expectancy is right now?

00:39:34

63? It's a little bit higher than that.

00:39:38

77.77, actually used to be 78

00:39:43

until this thing called COVID-19 took it down by a whole year.

00:39:46

77. I think it's interesting that

00:39:48

the Bible was written thousands of years ago,

00:39:50

and despite all of our technology, all of our medicine,

00:39:52

all of that, that the average life expectancy is still about,

00:39:56

as it says in the old King James version,

00:39:58

threescore and ten, or by strength, 80, 70 to 80 years.

00:40:02

So it should be a reminder to us that life is limited.

00:40:06

And because it's limited, we have to see it as sacred.

00:40:09

Tim Urban is a writer, he writes for Business Insider.

00:40:12

And he has this article and it's 11 graphs

00:40:15

to help you see how limited your life is.

00:40:18

It's sobering, but it's also very, very enlightening.

00:40:21

So one of the things he does in this is he counts down

00:40:24

how many times he has yet to experience a certain thing.

00:40:28

And so he did this one on Super Bowl.

00:40:31

So Tim was 34 when he wrote this

00:40:33

and was being optimistic that he would live to 90.

00:40:36

And so he said, "Okay, I got 90 Super Bowls in my lifetime."

00:40:40

And then he did the math on how many have already gone by.

00:40:43

So I was reading this and I saw this,

00:40:46

and it made me immediately think of something.

00:40:49

I am not 34.

00:40:51

I'm a bit older than 34,

00:40:54

and some of you are even older than me.

00:40:57

And so here's what I recognize.

00:41:00

We really need the Bengals to win a Super Bowl,

00:41:02

like, this year. [cheers and applause]

00:41:04

I mean, time is ticking.

00:41:09

So I don't know if Joe Burrow will ever see this,

00:41:12

but, Joe, we trust you. We believe in you,

00:41:14

and we are praying for you that this would be the year

00:41:17

that we can cross that off as a Super Bowl

00:41:20

the Bengals have won. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

00:41:22

So when you see life in that kind of perspective,

00:41:25

it's certainly puts your life into perspective.

00:41:27

Tim goes on, though, to talk about his relationship

00:41:31

with his parents and how limited the time is

00:41:35

that he has left with his parents.

00:41:37

Now, this was really, it actually made me cry,

00:41:40

honestly, as I read this, it made me cry

00:41:42

because he talks about what high school represents

00:41:44

in terms of the time that you spend with your kids.

00:41:47

And believe it or not, and this might be

00:41:49

eye opening in terms of the passage of time to some of you.

00:41:51

Many of you were around Crossroads when I told you

00:41:55

that me and my wife Maria were having our first child.

00:41:57

Well, I'll have you know, my oldest child

00:41:59

is on his way back from high school camp,

00:42:02

high school camp this year.

00:42:03

So Nathan is a high schooler.

00:42:05

And so I've been thinking about this.

00:42:07

And by the way, there are about 800 kids that are

00:42:09

on their way back from high school camp at Crossroads.

00:42:13

And I just got an update.

00:42:14

This week at high school camp,

00:42:16

200 kids made a commitment to follow Jesus

00:42:18

for the first time and 86 got baptized.

00:42:21

That is amazing. [cheers and applause] That is awesome.

00:42:27

And it's precious and sacred time that they spend there.

00:42:31

Because if you have a high schooler, here's the reality.

00:42:34

He says this. He says:

00:42:51

I know parents, man.

00:42:52

You want to just bum a parent out, right?

00:42:54

Like, but it's true. It's true.

00:42:56

As Nathan enters into high school,

00:42:59

I'm probably in the last 10% of the face to face time

00:43:03

I will ever have with my son.

00:43:06

That is a sobering reality, but it's meant to

00:43:09

help us understand the preciousness of time.

00:43:11

I think we need to be recalibrated

00:43:14

to the limited nature of time.

00:43:16

I think we think we know that.

00:43:17

We say things like, "Oh, time flies," all that stuff,

00:43:19

but we need to be recalibrated to it.

00:43:21

You know, one of the things I'm learning

00:43:23

is that church architecture,

00:43:24

there were intentional things done in church architecture

00:43:27

that were meant to help us stay rooted in His story.

00:43:30

Again, to go back to that song.

00:43:31

One of them is that's why many churches

00:43:33

had graveyards right next to them.

00:43:36

Can you imagine what it would be like

00:43:38

to come to your Crossroads site of choice

00:43:40

and as you're walking into church,

00:43:42

you're walking by a graveyard of people who have died

00:43:46

who have been a part of your church community?

00:43:49

How would that recalibrate how you think about your life?

00:43:52

How might that recalibrate how you think about

00:43:55

the time that you have left on this planet,

00:43:57

especially when some of those have the same last name as you?

00:44:01

Which would have been true in small churches.

00:44:03

Like there's something in the wisdom of the Bible

00:44:06

about understanding the precious nature of time

00:44:10

and time is sacred because it's limited.

00:44:12

That's true in the macro. It's also true in the micro.

00:44:14

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has many a day

00:44:17

at the end of the day, say, "Where did the time go?"

00:44:20

Right?

00:44:21

I mean, there are all kinds of things that distract us.

00:44:23

There are things that take us away from time.

00:44:25

I call them time sucks and I've got some time sucks.

00:44:28

And I'm sure you do too.

00:44:30

Here is just a classic time suck.

00:44:33

Be afraid, be very afraid when you are in your office

00:44:36

and somebody peeks in and says, "Hey, you got a minute?

00:44:42

I just have a question."

00:44:44

Has that ever been just a minute?

00:44:46

Have they ever just taken a minute?

00:44:48

I mean. No, It's like 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Right?

00:44:50

So, that's a time suck.

00:44:52

I'll be honest, you know, we're a church

00:44:53

that wants to be transparent, and I just need

00:44:56

to confess another time suck of mine

00:44:58

is every trip to Costco is a time suck for me.

00:45:01

I have not learned how to spend less than two hours at Costco.

00:45:05

In fact, Maria and I have just decided

00:45:07

when we go to Costco and they got those samples out,

00:45:09

we just call it a date because it's like, you know,

00:45:11

you got food, you got entertainment.

00:45:13

Like, I mean, it's a time suck, right?

00:45:15

Maybe it's Lowes for you. Maybe it's Home Depot for you.

00:45:17

Whatever the store is, there are time sucks.

00:45:19

And so we have to remember time is limited

00:45:22

and the limited nature of it makes it sacred.

00:45:24

But here's the other thing that makes time sacred.

00:45:26

It's really interesting, these paradoxes are true.

00:45:28

Time is also compounding. Time is compounding.

00:45:33

What do I mean when I say that?

00:45:34

I think if you want to read one book on time and habits,

00:45:37

I would say Atomic Habits by James Clear.

00:45:39

Great read. Great read.

00:45:40

And listen to what he says. He says:

00:45:55

Time magnifies the margin between success and failure.

00:45:59

It will multiply whatever you feed it.

00:46:02

Good habits make time your ally.

00:46:04

Bad habits make time your enemy.

00:46:08

That is a really profoundly spiritual statement.

00:46:12

There's such truth in that statement.

00:46:15

How we spend our time doing seemingly mundane things

00:46:19

can literally shape a life,

00:46:21

can literally shape the trajectory of a family,

00:46:24

can literally change the world.

00:46:28

One of my mentors coined a phrase

00:46:31

and maybe he got it from somewhere else.

00:46:32

But I use it because he uses it.

00:46:34

He says never underestimate the eternal consequences

00:46:38

of the seemingly inconsequential.

00:46:42

Never underestimate the eternal consequences

00:46:45


00:46:46

I'll give you a great example of this.

00:46:48

I believe that if you live with people,

00:46:50

if you live with a family unit, I believe that

00:46:53

the most important 10 minutes, maybe 20 minutes of your day

00:46:57

are the 10 minutes before you leave the house

00:47:00

and the first 10 minutes when you reconnect in the house.

00:47:04

And it's easy for us to blow by that.

00:47:06

It's easy for me to still be on this, finishing a text,

00:47:10

doing whatever I need to do as I'm engaging my family.

00:47:13

But make no mistake about it, those 10 minutes

00:47:16

of leaving and returning can set the entire tone

00:47:20

of an evening, can be the difference between

00:47:23

whether I have the conversation with my kids

00:47:25

that they want to have with me or not

00:47:28

because they see I'm distracted and not available.

00:47:30

Never underestimate the eternal consequences

00:47:33


00:47:34

Time is sacred because it's limited,

00:47:36

but it's also sacred because it compounds.

00:47:40

I love what he says: It will multiply what you feed it.

00:47:44

And so it's really important for us to think about that.

00:47:46

And I think that Psalms is helping us to understand that

00:47:48

in Psalm 90, because life is fleeting,

00:47:51

but also life is compounding.

00:47:54

Everybody's heard about the 10,000 hours rule.

00:47:56

10,000 hours can work for us or against us.

00:47:59

It's a neutral principle.

00:48:00

The question is, are we going for tiny gains

00:48:03

or are we going for tiny losses?

00:48:05

Time is sacred because it's compounding.

00:48:08

It's also sacred because it's God's gift.

00:48:10

Again, I just can't get over that line in that song:

00:48:13

time is the ink inside the pen that He's holding.

00:48:15

God has gifted us time. He has made you alive.

00:48:18

He has given you a life.

00:48:20

He is putting breath in your lungs right now.

00:48:22

He's giving you a beating heart right now.

00:48:24

There is a gift of time available to all of us

00:48:28

simply by being alive.

00:48:30

So if that's true of time, it's sacred.

00:48:33

Then how do we use it wisely?

00:48:35

I think the principle that stands out in Psalm 90

00:48:38

around this is we should budget time like money.

00:48:42

That's the simple principle: budget time, like money,

00:48:46

they work in very similar ways in terms of our life.

00:48:49

Time is a currency for us.

00:48:52

I would argue time is a far more important currency than money.

00:48:57

I think time, I mean, time is money. I believe that.

00:48:59

I think time is actually more important than money.

00:49:02

There are a lot of people who have a lot of money

00:49:05

but still run out of time

00:49:07

because of a sickness or an illness.

00:49:09

So I really believe that we should budget time like money.

00:49:12

In fact, I think that's what Psalm 90:12 is saying.

00:49:14

It says: So teach us to number our days

00:49:17

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

00:49:18

How do you number your days?

00:49:20

You budget your days. You think about your life.

00:49:22

So I just want to give you a couple of things

00:49:24

to think about in building a time budget.

00:49:26

And I'll be very clear, if you've read

00:49:28

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,

00:49:30

I'm not going to give anything earth shattering

00:49:32

in the next couple minutes that you haven't already heard,

00:49:34

but hopefully you can hear it from a spiritual lens

00:49:37

and maybe that will be a way to consider it again

00:49:40

or consider it differently.

00:49:41

I think the most important thing

00:49:42

when it comes to a time budget

00:49:44

is you should clarify your mission.

00:49:46

What is the thing that your life's going to be about?

00:49:49

Now, when I say that, I don't mean you have to have,

00:49:53

you know, here's how I'm going to live, learn, love and laugh.

00:49:55

You know, all those mission statement examples.

00:49:57

If you have that, awesome.

00:49:59

I have something like that. Awesome.

00:50:00

But I'm just saying this.

00:50:01

Maybe in this season you just need to say,

00:50:04

you know what? I need to make sure

00:50:06

my wife and kids know they are a priority.

00:50:08

Or I need to know, I need to make sure

00:50:09

my husband and kids know that they are my priority.

00:50:12

Maybe that's the mission that you need to have.

00:50:13

Maybe for you, it's, you know what?

00:50:15

I'm newer in my faith.

00:50:16

I've got to prioritize growing in my relationship with Jesus.

00:50:19

Like that's my mission.

00:50:20

Or maybe for you it is a career choice.

00:50:23

Maybe you're starting a business

00:50:24

and this needs to be a season where you prioritize

00:50:27

growing a healthy business or growing a healthy organization.

00:50:30

It doesn't have to necessarily live on paper,

00:50:32

but you need to be clear what is the thing you're focused on?

00:50:35

What is the thing that you're aiming at

00:50:36

as it relates to time in your life?

00:50:39

Mine right now, my current articulation,

00:50:41

and this is fairly new to me, I kind of wrote this

00:50:43

at the beginning of this year because of kind of

00:50:45

where I was in life and what I needed to clarify for myself.

00:50:47

So mine is I want to live a healthy, connected,

00:50:50

free and fully alive life of love.

00:50:53

Healthy, connected, free, fully alive, love.

00:50:57

That's the lens by which I want to be making decisions.

00:50:59

That's the lens by where I want to be prioritizing relationships

00:51:03

and so when I look at my life and I look at my time,

00:51:05

hey, am I prioritizing health?

00:51:07

Am I prioritizing being free and fully alive?

00:51:10

Am I prioritizing love and receiving it and also giving it?

00:51:14

Those are the things that I want to focus on.

00:51:16

So you need to clarify your mission.

00:51:18

I think the second thing that's important

00:51:19

when it comes to building your time budget, though,

00:51:21

is you need to honor your limits.

00:51:24

You need to honor your limits. We all have limits.

00:51:26

We are not unlimited and resources,

00:51:28

time, energy, strength, you name it.

00:51:30

We are not unlimited creatures.

00:51:32

We have limitations.

00:51:34

And so for me again, in this season,

00:51:37

I have documented my time limitations.

00:51:39

It's important for me to reckon with this because

00:51:42

I will be the first one to violate my limits

00:51:45

if I'm not clear on what they are.

00:51:47

So here's a couple of mine.

00:51:48

One is I need a day off each week, two is even better.

00:51:54

That's just true.

00:51:55

I need seven hours of sleep every night.

00:51:59

I need to exercise 4 to 5 days a week,

00:52:03

because if I stop exercising 4 to 5 days a week,

00:52:05

I will quickly go to exercising 0 to 0 days a week.

00:52:10

So I just need to know that's a limit I have in mind.

00:52:13

One of my limits is I got to prioritize my guys,

00:52:16

like, I have men that I'm in recovery relationships with

00:52:19

or I am in mentoring relationships with,

00:52:21

people who build into my life.

00:52:22

I have to prioritize those relationships

00:52:25

and make space and time for them because they bless my life.

00:52:28

I need that.

00:52:29

Here's another one for me.

00:52:30

I need a few hours of unscheduled time.

00:52:33

I mean, I just learned this, right?

00:52:35

Like, you know, sometimes the, "Hey, do you have a minute?"

00:52:37

Sometimes I need to be able to say yes to that

00:52:40

because that could lead to something important,

00:52:42

especially if the, "Hey, you got a minute?"

00:52:44

Is my wife or my kids.

00:52:46

So I need some unscheduled time.

00:52:47

I need some time that's not all booked up to the minute.

00:52:49

And so I'm trying to do that and make that a part of my life.

00:52:52

A couple more that I have that don't have anything

00:52:54

to do with necessarily week to week,

00:52:55

but are just true in my year or in my seasons.

00:52:58

One is I try to take one day a quarter to get away from work

00:53:01

and just have a retreat where I kind of recalibrate

00:53:03

on all the things because I need that.

00:53:06

It's easy for me to just be in the trenches

00:53:08

and sometimes I need to step back and take some perspective.

00:53:11

If you've been around Crossroads for any time,

00:53:13

you know I love to spend a week of silent retreat

00:53:15

with monks in Kentucky, and I do that once a year.

00:53:18

That's a limit.

00:53:19

If I don't do that, my year does not go well.

00:53:21

God does something in that week of silence

00:53:24

that I think is so important for me as a leader.

00:53:26

And another one for me is I need to take

00:53:29

two consecutive weeks of vacation

00:53:31

at some point in the year.

00:53:34

Because a week of vacation for me is not a week of vacation.

00:53:40

It's a week of decompressing from all the things in my mind.

00:53:43

I don't really start vacationing until I'm on day eight.

00:53:47

And so I need to make sure I've got time.

00:53:49

So actually, I'm about to do that.

00:53:51

Tuesday's -- well, Monday is my last day.

00:53:53

Tuesday I'm starting the two weeks of vacation

00:53:55

because I know I need that time.

00:53:57

I come alive in that time.

00:53:59

I come alive to my kids and my family.

00:54:00

I come alive to my wife.

00:54:01

Like, now I'm present.

00:54:03

So now I can understand

00:54:04

what's going on in your world in a different way.

00:54:06

It's so important.

00:54:08

What are your limits?

00:54:09

You should be very clear about your limits

00:54:11

and honor them, honor your limits.

00:54:15

And then finally, in building your time budget,

00:54:17

I would say budget weekly.

00:54:18

I just find that it's interesting that

00:54:21

in the creation story

00:54:22

we're introduced to two measures of time.

00:54:26

One is the 24 hour period.

00:54:28

So there's clearly something to the day.

00:54:30

That's why we need to sleep a third of every day. Right?

00:54:33

So there's something there.

00:54:34

But then isn't it interesting that

00:54:35

the next unit of time that we're introduced to is a week?

00:54:38

And somebody put it to me this way.

00:54:40

They said, "You can't live your whole life in a day,

00:54:43

but you can live your whole life in a week."

00:54:46

And what they meant was this:

00:54:48

There are days when if you looked at my schedule,

00:54:51

it doesn't look like I have a mission at all.

00:54:54

There are days where if you look at my schedule,

00:54:56

it doesn't look like I have limits at all.

00:54:58

I didn't honor them, if I do.

00:54:59

That's going to happen.

00:55:00

But over the course of a week,

00:55:02

you can ask yourself two helpful questions.

00:55:04

Number one, do the things that I say I care about

00:55:08

show up in this week?

00:55:10

They may not be able to show up Monday

00:55:11

because Monday is a busy day

00:55:12

or it may not be able to show up Friday, whatever.

00:55:14

But is there a day or time blocks in this week

00:55:17

where the things I say are important,

00:55:18

the people I say are important are showing up in my week?

00:55:22

Preferably consistently, regularly. Right?

00:55:25

And then the second question is you can ask yourself

00:55:28

am I honoring my limits this week?

00:55:30

You know, if you travel, that might not be

00:55:32

a great night of sleep for you in a hotel.

00:55:34

But what does it look like then to say,

00:55:36

"Hey, but when I'm home, I'm going to build my life

00:55:38

so that I'm not doing a whole bunch of stuff

00:55:40

late into the hours of the night

00:55:41

because I need to sleep when I can."

00:55:43

And I just think that's so helpful.

00:55:45

So that's how we can budget our time:

00:55:48

clarify your mission, honor your limits.

00:55:51

And then finally, Budget weekly.

00:55:53

Think about it as a weekly investment.

00:55:56

When I was preparing this talk, preparing this message,

00:55:59

and I had one of these a-ha! moments

00:56:02

where I knew God was speaking something clearly

00:56:05

that He wanted me to to share.

00:56:07

And it happened at an odd moment.

00:56:09

I was in Pennsylvania, as I said,

00:56:10

I was at my nephew's house where we were staying.

00:56:13

And I'm sitting in the room and I had been doing

00:56:15

some kind of writing of the message.

00:56:17

I just had to put it down.

00:56:18

You know, it's like you get writer's block,

00:56:19

that happens to preachers, you get preachers block,

00:56:21

and you're just like, I need to put it down, come back to it.

00:56:24

So I'm sitting down and I'm just hanging out

00:56:26

and my kids are playing Minecraft.

00:56:28

My 12 year old and my nine year old are playing Minecraft.

00:56:30

And my 12 year old blurts out

00:56:32

in the middle of playing Minecraft,

00:56:34

"Isabel, to gain perspective,

00:56:37

you've got to take the high ground."

00:56:42

I mean, I don't know about your 12 year old.

00:56:44

My 12 year old son is smart. He's really smart.

00:56:47

But he's not in the habit of blurting out things

00:56:49

that could be on a fortune cookie.

00:56:52

So I'm like saying, "What did you just say?"

00:56:54

And he's like, "Oh, no. I was telling Isabel, like,

00:56:56

for this thing we're doing in Minecraft,

00:56:57

like, if she if she wants perspective,

00:56:59

she needs to take the high ground."

00:57:00

I was like, "Dude, I think you -

00:57:02

I think you just made my message this weekend.

00:57:03

I'm pretty sure.

00:57:05

I'm pretty sure there's something in that for me."

00:57:07

And so I've been thinking about that a lot.

00:57:09

Like, well, if we're talking about time,

00:57:12

why do we need God's perspective?

00:57:14

And it's because God has the higher ground.

00:57:17

I mean, think about it.

00:57:18

I'm struck by something

00:57:19

Matt Chandler said a couple of weeks ago.

00:57:21

He said, God does not just know the future,

00:57:24

God is in the future right now.

00:57:28

God exists outside of time.

00:57:30

He has a perspective outside of the linear time that we see.

00:57:33

God is literally in the past, in the present,

00:57:36

and in the future at the same time.

00:57:39

Why would we not want to tap into the wisdom

00:57:41

of someone who doesn't just know your future

00:57:44

but is in your future?

00:57:46

It's amazing to think about that gift.

00:57:50

So you should want to know God's perspective on time

00:57:53

because God is the author of time.

00:57:55

But you should also want to know His perspective

00:57:58

because God is the author of you.

00:58:01

Psalm 139 says: Before I was formed in the womb,

00:58:05

you knew me, you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

00:58:09

Why would you not want to tap into the perspective

00:58:11

of how to use these limited days

00:58:13

of the person who took the time to knit you,

00:58:17

took the time to knit your personality,

00:58:19

took the time to knit the unique talents that make you you?

00:58:24

So we should want God's perspective

00:58:25

because He is the author of time, but also because

00:58:28

He's the author of you.

00:58:30

And finally, you should want God's perspective

00:58:32

because He loves you, like, really, really loves you.

00:58:36

Do you know that? No, seriously.

00:58:39

Did you know that God loves you?

00:58:41

Seriously, He loves you.

00:58:44

And I'm not talking about a general you.

00:58:46

I'm talking about you by name,

00:58:48

you with your unique personality,

00:58:49

you with all of your brokenness in your past, He loves you.

00:58:53

How do we know He loves us?

00:58:56

In the past God showed us the ultimate act of love.

00:59:01

Romans 5:8 says it this way:

00:59:09

Let me tell you that the Cross

00:59:11

reframes all of your life and time

00:59:14

if you let God's love become the focal point

00:59:16

of how you spend your days.

00:59:17

Because in the Cross we see that our past can be redeemed

00:59:22

because he died for your sins

00:59:24

before those sins were ever committed.

00:59:26

So we clearly can't be limited to our past sins

00:59:29

in terms of how God deals with us

00:59:31

because he died in advance of those sins.

00:59:33

But that also means that because of His death

00:59:36

and His resurrection, that your future

00:59:39

doesn't have to be the same as your past.

00:59:42

Because when He rose,

00:59:43

it was the introduction of a new resurrection life,

00:59:46

a resurrection life that the Bible says

00:59:48

is actually alive and active inside of you

00:59:50

when you're in relationship with Jesus.

00:59:52

But here's the most important thing,

00:59:55

because of the Cross we know that

00:59:56

no matter where we are in life,

00:59:58

whether we're going through a period of grief

01:00:00

or we're going through a good time in our life,

01:00:02

whether we're in a midst of difficulty

01:00:03

or whether we are in a place of ease,

01:00:05

we know because of the Cross that God could not love you

01:00:09

any more right now in the present than He already does

01:00:13

because He demonstrated on the Cross

01:00:15

that there is nothing you can do that would separate you

01:00:19

from His loving pursuit of you.

01:00:22

And I want to tell you when God's love

01:00:26

becomes the focal point of your time, life starts to work.

01:00:32

It starts to work. Time starts to make sense.

01:00:35

And that doesn't mean it's easy.

01:00:37

But what it means is, no matter where I am in my life

01:00:40

and my limited years,

01:00:41

I know that God's steadfast love is with me.

01:00:44

I love the ending of Psalm 90, where it says,

01:00:47

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.

01:00:51

God can do that.

01:00:53

When his steadfast love is the bookend

01:00:55

of how you view your life in time,

01:00:57

you can be satisfied in any situation,

01:01:02

you can have gladness in any situation.

01:01:06

I know that doesn't make logical sense to our brains.

01:01:09

I know it doesn't.

01:01:11

But as my wise son Samuel said,

01:01:13

if you want to gain perspective,

01:01:14

you've got to take the high ground.

01:01:16

And when you do, you will find that God is so kind.

01:01:20

And He is inviting you into His wise perspective

01:01:25

on the limited days of your life.

01:01:28

So I have a call to action for you, and it's very simple.

01:01:31

What's one area of your life right now

01:01:34

where you need God's perspective on how you spend your time?

01:01:39

Maybe it is your spiritual life.

01:01:42

And God, what does it look like for me

01:01:44

to have rhythms with you in this season of my life?

01:01:47

Maybe for you it's a relationship,

01:01:49

maybe a great and new relationship

01:01:51

that you want to set off on the right foot.

01:01:53

Maybe a difficult relationship

01:01:54

that you're in the process of trying to repair.

01:01:56

But you need God to govern and guide you

01:01:58

on how do I spend my time toward this end?

01:02:01

Maybe it is something in your career or your vocation.

01:02:04

Maybe you're in school and it has to do with your education.

01:02:06

I want you to think of one area of your life

01:02:09

where you need God to give you the high ground

01:02:13

and give you a perspective on your life, just one.

01:02:17

Think about that and have that in your mind

01:02:20

as I introduce a tool to you.

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