Redeeming the Time

I've been reading a book entitled Redeeming the Time - A Practical Guide to a Christian Man's Time Management, by Steven Maxwell. It's a good book, a good motivator. It has me thinking a lot about how I spend my time, and more specifically how I waste my time. I see many areas in my daily life where I am just passing time, which essentially means I am wasting it. Because once time passes, it's gone forever, except in memory. And how many of us think back fondly on those special times when we were just sitting around watching TV, passing the time before the appointed "bedtime"?

So I have found myself saying, "Wait a minute. How many reruns of The Office do I really need to see? Perhaps my time would be better spent going on to bed, then getting up earlier for Bible reading and prayer, and then getting started on the day with my work, and with raising children."

What a more sensible use of the time I have. That is "redeeming the time."

The book I am reading suggests living by a daily schedule, where everything has a specific time and it is the same every day. That I find almost impossible with the kind of freelance work I do. No two days are ever the same for me. For that matter no two weeks or months or years are even the same. Perhaps you've heard the term "Feast or Famine." Well that's my life these past two years. Although "Feast" I have yet to experience. It's more like "Not Quite Famine or Famine." I digress.

This past Spring I had so much work coming in I couldn't keep up with it all. Then summer came. Dead. Nothing. It was quite a struggle for us. No checks at all coming in the mail. But plenty of bills. More and more bills (and a few phone calls from the bank). But God always comes through and saves us. He is always faithful to His promises that He will never leave us nor forsake us.

Then last month, work started picking up again. In fact for a few weeks there I was working around 15 or 16 hours straight every day. No time for fun, no time for kids, no time for Wednesday night or Sunday night church, etc, etc. Pretty hard to live by a schedule in those types of conditions.

About a week ago, I finally got caught up. And yesterday I looked at my work calendar for the rest of October and it was bare. Nothing. No jobs on the schedule for the rest of the month.

Hmmm... how shall I spend that time?

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