When we first returned from the mission field I was asked to be the speaker at a weekend retreat for young mothers. Being a young mother myself, I began to take note of what I did with my own time! Each of life’s seasons is clocked by the way we use or lose our time.
We don’t only lose our time by doing nothing or by doing what is wrong, but we also lose it by doing something other than that which we ought to do, even though what we are doing is good! We allow the good to take the place of the better or best, sacrificing the permanent on the altar of the immediate.
By virtue of our roles as: wives, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, teachers, chefs, taxi-drivers, career women…our time is swallowed-up, compartmentalized and distractedly divided. We are constantly making a choice with our time based on what is most demanding, aren’t we??
We, moms, are strangely ingenious in seeking our own interest with our time! What “worldly souls do crudely and openly, we do more subtly with the help of some pretext which serves as a screen and stops us from seeing the ugliness of our behavior.”
What’s up with your time??
How do we reach the point of responsible use of our time without guilt?
Do we even want to?
On the cross, Jesus said three words at the very end of His life on earth. He uttered, “It is finished!”…… Not all was complete that needed to be done, but all that the Father gave Him to do was finished.
If there are 99 things to do and He tells me to do 9,
then for me, it is finished…
Jesus could leave the blind, crippled and lost because He had done all He was commissioned to do on earth. Martin Luther said, “ I spend three hours daily on my knees in prayer with the purpose of getting my priorities in order so I can live at peace with myself knowing I had heard the Master’s voice and my job was finished for that day!” (Paraphrased)
Do we stop and seek His instruction or do we blindly jump up
in the morning and take off on a dead run …
in our own strength, without consulting the Master
for His assignment…
How many of us pause and pray daily for God’s priorities for the day?
Reviewing our priorities ought to be one of the basic reasons
for prayer…not petitioning!
Do your little prince and princesses have a sense
that you are operating out of divine purpose?
~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America. Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California. My passion is discipling and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.
