My Daily Devotional

Use Your Time Wisely

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
2nd Peter 3:8-9

During my career I have conducted numerous seminars covering various administrative and financial issues. The number one problem most people listed as keeping them from their goals was time management. Most people just can’t find enough time to accomplish all the things they want to do or would like to do. The thing to consider if you have this problem is that you have something in common with everyone else on this earth, and that is that all of us have the same amount of time each day to work with. You might ask yourself why other people get different results out of the same amount of time. In my book “God’s Plan for a Joy Filled Life” I devoted an entire chapter about how to use your time effectively. There are three keys to making the most of your time (1) Know what God’s purpose for your life is, (2) Live by biblical priorities and (3) Make plans that reflect God’s will for your life. These three keys will let you manage your time, and do the things that both you and God want accomplished. I also discuss time management in many of my devotionals. To make the most of our time we need to have our priorities developed into a plan of action. If we don’t know where we are going, we will not know how to get there, or even know if and when we do get there. We must establish a daily plan for our lives. We must know what we are going to work on each day. We must have our priorities engrained in our minds and not waver from them. If we don’t have a plan for our day, we are going to aimlessly wander from one thing to another and not get anything accomplished. When we know our purpose in life, we will know what our priorities need to be. Our priorities will then determine what our plans and goals will be during our day. Time management is simple when we follow the progression: From purpose, to priorities, to plans and goals. Just remember that when we set our plans and goals each day, knowing our purpose and living by biblical priorities, these will be God’s plans and goals for us as well. God will always provide enough time to accomplish His goals and plans. When we use God’s plan for our lives we will find our time will be more productive time. Begin today to use your time productively. Ask God to reveal your purpose in life, which will enable you to establish your priorities and make God’s plan come true. The pursuit of so many Christian’s today is that their plans are not God’s plans. Their pursuit is that of acquiring riches, and their own personal gains and desires. Their plans do not mesh with God’s plans. By looking at our purpose, our priorities, our plans and our goals, we can quickly see how we spend our time. How we spend our time determines who and what we are. When we decide to manage our time by God’s priorities we will find that we will become effective time managers. We need to ask ourselves if we have set our goals and priorities for each day to match what God’s goals and priorities are. The time we have on this earth is uncertain, and utilizing our time wisely is the difference between us meeting our goals and objectives in life, and utilizing our talent to the fullest, or not accomplishing what God wants us to accomplish. Set your priorities for your day to include God. Just a little time alone with God each morning will make us ready to face our busy schedules, and a little time at night will help us reflect about our day’s activities and ways to improve them. When we can’t take the time to schedule some time with God each day, there is something wrong in our lives. Now is the time to get our priorities in order, and begin to listen to God, and spend time with Him and in His word.

(Many of my readers have asked if my Daily Devotionals have been published and if they could purchase them. The Devotionals I am posting are from My Daily Devotional Volume III which was published in 2009 and can be purchased at amazon.com or from me at robbrock@comcast.net)