I don’t know about you, but for me, 2007 has ruined all my definitions of the word, “busy.”
For the first time ever, I discovered this year the upper limits of my cell phone’s voice mail capacity. In fact, weeks have gone by where people were unable to leave voice mails for me because it was full. There are more unread e-mails (legitimate ones — I have very good filtering!) awaiting my attention than at any point that I can recall. There are even valuable relationships in my life that are seriously suffering.
Why? Well the reasons are too long to list here, but it comes down basically to one thing: focus. This year, I found myself with a real need to ruthlessly focus on just a few hypercritical things. And it’s been fruitful. I highly recommend it. At the same time, however, I’ve been forced to slash things out of my schedule — some of them other people might have considered non-negotiable.
And so, as 2007 winds down, I want more time. No really: I’m not finished! There’s more to do!
Today, I spotted something in Proverbs that gave me a glimmer of hope. Here’s the passage:
The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord prolongs one’s days, but the years of the wicked shall be made short. — Proverbs 10:27 (AMP)
In the past, I’ve always understood this to mean that you’ll have a long life. “Days” seems to be a metaphor throughout the Old Testament for the length of your life. However, today I happened to notice something…
The word that’s used in the Hebrew (the original language) for “days” in this verse literally comes from a word meaning “hot.” In other words, the Hebrew thought behind this word is “the warm hours” — the time from one sunrise to a sunset. These are the hours in which you can work.
So… putting that concept back into the verse we’re looking at today, “The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord prolongs one’s hours in which one can work….”
I don’t pretend to understand how God does this, but I’ve experienced it. On days when I know my schedule is crammed full of more stuff than I could possibly get done, I’ve found that if I invest time sacrificially in Him and in relating to Him, I am more productive and more fruitful during the remainder of my day. It appears that Solomon seems to have documented this as well!
Now… off I go to invest time sacrificially in relating to Father! Hope you do the same!
March 30th, 2008 at 1:57 am
2008 is proving to be the most busy time in my life, between running a business and starting a new magazine and website it has taken more time then I have, I have tried this principal and it works,GOD really does redeem time. We must as businesspeople grasp this concept before we get swept away in the business of life.
Money is replaceable, time is not.