Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
Visit any bookstore or library, and you’ll see shelves lined with books on time management. The world is awash with experts and gurus teaching us how to be more productive and efficient. This is a topic on which no end of literature seems to be in sight. Such offerings may be more or less helpful, but they recognize a problem that many of us feel: the need to be good stewards of our time.
biblical perspectives
The Bible also speaks to the limits and values of our time and encourages us to be faithful stewards of this precious resource. Moses asks the Lord to teach us to number our days so that we might have a heart of wisdom (Ps. 90:12). James teaches us not to boast about next year, because we do not know what the next day may bring (James 4:13–16).
The Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament provides insights into how to steward our time well. Proverbs teaches us to be diligent in our work so that we will have food to eat (Prov. 10:4–5; 28:19). Laziness destroys (18:9). Proverbs presents the righteous as diligent. Mere talk leads nowhere; we need to take action (14:23). James’ warning in the New Testament not to boast about the coming year draws on Proverbs 27:1, which teaches that we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We therefore need to entrust our plans to the Lord (3:5–6; 16:3, 9).
Another angle on stewarding our time comes from the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, who faces the sober reality of death. Everyone’s time is limited; we therefore need to live in light of God’s ultimate supremacy and to follow His revealed will in our lives (see Eccl. 12:13). The Preacher wrestles with our limitations in this life. His language of “vanity” might also be translated “fleeting” or “breath-like” (e.g., 1:2). We don’t know how long we will live, so we should work diligently while we have opportunity (8:7–8; 9:9–10, 12). It is important to remember our Creator when we have the strength to labor (12:1–7). Like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes tells us to take action, and to do so wisely (10:10; 11:1–6). It is important that we not put too much stock in our own work, since only God’s works last forever (1:11; 2:16; 3:14). Our limitations should ultimately lead us not to despair but to enjoyment of God’s good gifts (5:18–20; 11:8).
Even more clarity about our time comes in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul’s life is in many ways a model for how to be diligent in our callings, and he specifically addresses our work in his letters. In 1–2 Thessalonians, Paul warns against idleness. He instructs the Thessalonians that true Christian faithfulness means attending to the needs of daily life; we should stay busy with honest work and not be busybodies (2 Thess. 3:6–11). Paul’s own life demonstrates what it looks like not to be idle—he worked with his hands as a tentmaker alongside his task of preaching the gospel (e.g., 1 Thess. 2:9; see also Acts 18:3). Paul’s frequent exhortations to be excellent in our work, since we work for the Lord and not for other people, seems also to assume that we’re being good stewards of our time (e.g., Col. 3:17, 23–24). Indeed, for Paul self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23). Although self-control is about more than just wise stewardship of our time, it is related. Instead of indulging the desires of our flesh, we should instead seek to live soberly, making the most of our opportunities to walk in righteousness and to serve one another (Gal. 5:13–14; Titus 2:11–13).
Paul relates wisdom to the use of our time in Ephesians 5:15–17: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” The phrasing “making the best use of the time” has also been translated “redeeming the time” (KJV). But what does Paul mean by this phrase?
What Paul says in Ephesians 5:16 is relevant for managing our time, but it has to do primarily with living godly lives in the present evil age in which we live. This is evident from the context of Ephesians 5. The days are evil, and we need to consider carefully how we live. Paul calls us in Ephesians 4:22–24 to grow increasingly mature in Christ, living in light of the exaltation of Christ. Instead of indulging the flesh, we are to follow Christ and live wisely in the midst of an ungodly world. This will include using our time well, but Paul’s vision is much broader than that. Living wisely means not gratifying our sinful desires, and it means doing all that we can to serve one another (compare 1 Peter 4:10). Paul also gives us encouragement that our labors in Christ are not in vain because of the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:58).
In sum, Scripture teaches us to walk in wisdom, to work diligently, to realize the limitations of our days, and to live self-controlled lives by God’s grace, taking encouragement from the resurrection of Christ.
practical tips
The Bible teaches us to number our days, and it provides principles for how we are to do that. Yet the specific applications of these principles may vary from age to age and from person to person. In what follows, I want to offer some practices that I have found to be useful. These should not be taken as authoritative but are only suggestions that may help you consider what would be useful in your own context.
Before offering some practices, a couple of points may be helpful to keep one’s bearings. First, avoid the temptation to make stewarding your time all about yourself. Instead, this should be one of many ways that we seek to honor God in all that we do and as we seek to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Second, since we have limitations, we can’t do everything. Wise stewarding of time entails strategic investment of our time. We will be able to do only some of the things we would like to do. Therefore, our limitations will require us to say no to a number of good opportunities that we simply will not have time for. A principle is that everything we say yes to will necessarily require saying no to other things. We therefore want to make sure that we’re purposefully saying yes to investing our time in the most important things. Understanding what those most important things are may require careful assessment of our highest-priority responsibilities.
Here are six specific suggestions for wise stewardship of our time.
1. Focus on worship and the means of grace. We are not stewarding our time well if we neglect gathering together with God’s people. Work only six days, and take Sundays off from your work to worship and rest. In addition to the Lord’s Day, consider each day how you might pursue Scripture, prayer, and fellowship.
2. Find a system that will allow you to capture your to-dos. This might be a hard-copy notebook, or it might be an electronic system. But you need a way to write down things that need to get done, or they can easily slip through the cracks. We have so many things to remember that it’s easy to forget things that we don’t write down. Your system of capturing to-dos also needs to allow for easy review so that you will actually use it.
3. Preview and review your week. Before each week, look ahead at your calendar and to-do list and consider what responsibilities, due dates, meetings, activities, and so forth are on the horizon for the coming week. Take note of them, and be sure that you’ve done what you need to do to prepare for them. Determine when you will accomplish specific tasks related to your upcoming week. You may find it helpful to write these down manually.
In addition to previewing your week ahead, review at the end of each week. Consider at the end of each week how effective you were in accomplishing your tasks. What did you do well? Where might you need to improve? Some tasks will probably take more time than you expected, some less time. You can learn from your previous week, and you may see ways that you can improve your stewardship of time in the coming week.
4. Focus on finishing three tasks each day. We all probably have more than three tasks that we need to do on a given day. But a helpful productivity practice observes that focusing on only three items that need to get done each day ensures that the most important items are completed and frees you up to get even more than these three things done. It also helps you not to feel overwhelmed with all that you could be doing. Focus on the three most important things on your to-do list each day, even though you probably have more that you will need to accomplish.
5. Harness the power of routines. Some tasks require many steps and quite a bit of time. Such tasks can be overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. Take large projects and break them down into manageable chunks. Work on them a little bit at a time, and see the gains add up.
For example, if you need to read a thousand-page book, that probably feels like a large task. But consider how much more manageable it is to read 250 pages a week. That comes out to just over forty pages a day if you work six days a week. That’s still a lot of work, but it’s much more manageable than a thousand pages all at once. How about reading the Bible in a year? The Bible is a big book, but if you read a few chapters a day, even reading the entire Bible is manageable over the course of a year.
To harness the power of routines, you need to be consistent. Commit to doing a little bit each day. It’s also important to get started early. Get moving on that large project as soon as you can, even if it’s only a little bit. Every little bit really does help. The earlier you get started, the less you have to do each day. And that makes large projects even more manageable.
6. Invest your time in healthy habits. It might seem like exercising or cooking a healthy meal is a waste of time, but such activities can actually be wise, strategic investments of our time. Time invested in healthy activities often leads to greater maximizing of the time throughout the day and week. For example, going for a walk might be the best use of your time, even if you’re very busy.
conclusion
These are just a few of the practices that you may find helpful. Everyone’s situation is different, and you may need to tailor these suggestions to your own context. Whatever our situation, we should seek to honor God with our time and seek to love our neighbors well.
Finally, don’t forget the encouragement of Ecclesiastes that life is about more than just work. Part of stewarding our time well means investing it in the lives of people we love. Parents should spend time with their children. Spouses need time for one another. We need to invest in the lives of people in the church. As we do this, let us enjoy the good gifts God gives.