Time

Stewardship is preached within our churches on a regular basis. Pastors quote often:

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:10 KJV)

Included in these sermons are comments regarding our time. Not just on Sunday morning for worship service, but for ministries during the week. That, too, is good stewardship.

And right here I’d like to put in a good word for personal organizational skills. Unless you are already an organized individual, there is time to be gained by organizing your life.

What? Right in the middle of a Bible quoting, religious discussion of stewardship? Yep. And, for good reason.

Today a kind, passionate, helpful, dedicated Christian man could not perform portions of his job in a timely manner -- because he could not find things in his office. And, while searching for that which was not to be found, a bit of money was lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t much. Less than a dollar, but it wasn’t good stewardship.

The real problem? Time. The time it would have taken to organize properly and have at hand the item needed. Versus the time it took to look, not find, and lose something else, too.

The reason that we need to be good stewards of time is that it belongs to God. We all get the same allotment each day. We act as though there aren’t enough hours in the day to complete our lists. We refer to rush hours, time constraints, hours stolen away from us. God provided to each and every one of us an equal amount of time to complete His will.

Yet we toss some time aside, needlessly.

We really don’t need to have chores or busyness added to our already hectic schedules. But organizing our lives saves time. Budgeting our time as we do our finances saves time. Scheduling our time saves time. And having a place for things, with things in their place, saves time, too.

What to do with that saved time? Return it to our Lord in service to His glory. Isn’t that the perfect way to spend time when we become good stewards? Or do we ignore that stewardship and take a bit of pride in our lack of organization? Make jokes about it?

Want more time? prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:10 KJV)

Go ahead – prove it and get those blessings! We’ll only need time here. Later, we’ll have timeless eternity.