Time

Pastor Fred continued the current series by preaching out of Ephesians 5:7-17. As Pastor Fred was reminding us that we are supposed to be a pleasing aroma to God, he listed off some of his favorite smells. As a farm kid, I realized that he missed the two greatest aromas of all time, which is either fresh cut/baled hay or fresh turned dirt, and I can’t decide which is my favorite. Maybe it’s because there was hard work involved and there is a sense of accomplishment involved. 

  I verse 7, Paul uses the word theorem, so we must ask the question, what’s it there for?what is he referring to? If go back in the chapter, Paul tells the church in Ephesians to not participate in idolatry along with not participating in foolish or course talk, and not being greedy. So if Paul were here today, he would tell us those things and that we should also be careful what we watch to what we post on social media and consuming when we are doom scrolling. Also being wise in what we listen to, the movies and shows we watch and even the jokes we share. More importantly, it’s how we talk to each other or about each other. How often are we willing to build people up instead of mocking them, or even bringing them down. Even worse, how often do we start rumors about each other and label it as prayer request, so that we can make ourselves look more holy. So what do we do?

 Most importantly, we need to redeem our time. How often to we pick up our phone to check something “important” and forty five minutes later we have accomplished nothing. I can’t be the only one who does this. Here is something that hurts to hear and that is time is not ours because it belongs to God and He gives it to us. The scary part is that He expects us to be good stewards of that time that he gives us. I challenge you to write down how you either spend a day or even a week and then review it. How much of it is God focused and how much of it is me focused? This doesn’t mean we should be spending all of our time at church or praying. We can pray as we do dishes or work on a project to the best of our God given ability. Redeeming Gods time means that someone will be mad because we tell them no because it’s not what God has for us at that time. 

 Another important concept is that we change our time to what is important. How often do we run ourselves out of gas because we are doing everything. There are seasons of our lives that are going to be busy, but is it God glorifying, or is our schedule running our lives to the point of exhaustion. Remember when we fail to plan, our plans fail. How about we check in with God for direction in the morning, but also throughout the day. Remember, if you don’t hear from God, keep doing what you know God has called you to do. 

  When we honor the time that God dives us, we are redeeming that time for something holy. We gave countless choices that come our way ranging from horrible, to good, to God honoring. The last time I checked, God wants us to do what’s best, because at times, doing what is good may look holy but in all reality it is the antithesis oh doing what is holy.

  I will close with these two things. The first one is that Glorify God in what we do and how we do it, we become that sweet aroma I mentioned earlier. Secondly, if we done steward our time well, we end up asking where am I at and how did I get here? This tends to lead to a boat load of questions and guilt for opportunities not taken. If you ever listened to the song Cats in the Craddle by Harry Chapin or the countless covers of the song, you know that song is about a father regrets for working all the time and not having a relationship with his son. The final verse is the father realizing that his son turned out just like him which led to immense guilt. So here is my question, do we steward are time well in what we say, watch and do so we have a clean conscience or do we mishandle it  and deal with guilt, and shame?

Grace and Peace,

Tom Boustead