Many of us consider how we steward our money, but we often forget that stewarding our time is just as important. Randy Alcorn reminds us that awareness of how you spend your time is the first step to spending it well.
I want to give some practical suggestions for being a better steward of the time God gives us each day, especially for making time to study God’s Word.
I encourage you to keep track of how you spend your time for one week. You can use a time management sheet to keep track of everything you do in a day, but most specifically what you do with your discretionary time.
For example, write down time spent:
- Sleeping
- Diving
- Shopping
- Eating
- Talking with your spouse
- Playing with your kids
- Reading to your kids
- Working around the house
- Small talk (phone, texting, or in person) with friends
- Church
- Reading the newspaper, magazines, or books (designate what you read)
- Bible reading
- Prayer
- Exercise
- Games
- Internet/Phone
- Reading and responding to email
- Listening to music
- Television (Break down time spent in terms of: News, Sports, Regular programming, Movies, Other)
Total the specifics in each category rather than just estimating a total because we always underestimate. Of course, sometimes you can do two things at once. For example, listening to the music (or Scripture) while driving, or reading or watching TV while exercising. In that case, just note you did two things at once and credit the time spent to both categories.
When we track how we spend our time, we become better stewards because we gain awareness of what we might otherwise overlook. For example, most people watch far more TV than they realize. Awareness is the first step in stewardship—it allows us to make intentional choices about how to use our time. Once we see the reality, we can decide to spend more time reading, studying God’s Word, talking with our spouse, or spending time with our children. To steward my time well, I might choose to reduce my television watching by 10 hours each week. But we can’t make those changes until we have a clear picture of how we’re currently spending our time.
When I was talking with my wife Nanci about this, she reminded me of when she had food allergy issues and was told to write down everything she ate for several weeks. She found it incredibly helpful. The same principle applies to how we spend our time—simply becoming aware of what we’re actually doing can make a huge difference in our ability to evaluate and make positive, God-glorifying changes.
I’ll admit, I often struggle with how quickly each day slips away. I try to keep my focus on the Lord and His Word, asking Him to show me the few things He truly wants me to do. Every day—even this one—brings a hundred distractions, not all of them bad. Many are good. But I remind myself that I must say no to most good things so I can say yes to the few things God is truly calling me to.
Jesus told Martha, “There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it—and I won’t take it away from her!” (Luke 10:42, TLB)
Additional Resources
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