The Little-Known Secret to Managing Your Life:
What the Bible Has to Say about Life Management
Part I
How many Time Management classes have you taken during the course of your life? As a Professional Organizer since 1982, I have attended about 20 such classes, and they pretty much all say the same thing. They deal with priorities, planning, organizing your projects, knowing your purpose (vision), procrastination, and much more.
I come at time management from a slightly different angle. I believe that you can’t manage time. You can’t buy it, sell it, store it, save it, loan it, multiply it, change it, manufacture it, or rent it. You cannot physically catch it, nor can you harness it and make it your own. No one can really manage time. You can only spend it. Time management is really life management or self-management. You can’t manage your time, you can only manage yourself, and you can’t manage yourself until you discipline your spirit, mind and body. The way you spend your time determines how you live your life.
Most of us are doing time. We never seem to have enough time, yet we have all the time there is. I believe that we are very much like a tree. Abraham Lincoln put it this way. “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” To manage our lives, we focus way too much on the tree limbs and not the tree root. I like to deal with the root of what is causing us to mismanage our time instead of the tree limbs. Dealing with priorities, planning and projects (the tree limbs) are necessary, but if the tree root is unhealthy, then just dealing with the tree limbs is a waste of time.
Let’s go deeper by asking what does the tree root consist of? The root consists of our values and character and what lies at the depth of who we really are. These character qualities would be things like faith, self-control, perseverance, honesty, kindness, and more. If we operate in these qualities, it is amazing how our time-life management falls into place.
There is an interesting group of verses in the Bible that talk about this very thing. They are found in
2 Peter 1: 3-8. Let’s take a quick look at what Peter has to say about life management.
2 Peter 1: 3-8- By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and effective you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
~My Take on the Verse~
2 Peter 1:3-8 says that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness through His promises. As we participate in His divine nature (His character) and appropriate His character into our spirits, these characteristics will enhance our productivity and effectiveness.
WOW! Now that is an answer to our life management issues!
*Come back Thursday for Part 2 as we explore three of the seven characteristics that Peter applauds: Excellence, Self-control, and Perseverance!