(The following post is by Rachel W.)
Time. What comes to your mind when you hear this word? Time magazine? Maybe a clock or a watch? When I hear the word time the first thing that comes to my mind is “my most precious commodity.” You have heard it said before – “we all have the same 24 hours in a day.” As repetitive or common as this statement might be, the reality is that it is true. Rich or poor, young or old, male or female, we all have the same amount of hours in each day. There is no way to earn or purchase more time. But how does time relate to the Kingdom of God? How can we look at it through the lens of His Kingdom?
Time is a gift and a resource that God expects us to steward to the best of our ability. One of the places I am currently reading in my quiet time is Luke, which also happens to be my favorite gospel. The past few days have been especially rich and although I have not reached this chapter yet, writing about time and what Jesus expects of us brings to mind one of my favorite parables in Luke. In Luke 14:12-23, Jesus tells the Parable of the Great Banquet. A man decides to have a banquet and he invites a great host of guests. They agree to attend and so he makes all the preparations for the big day. Then, we see that it says, “ ‘Come for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses.” Those who had RSVP’d and made a commitment to attend, gave reasons why they could not be there. Interestingly enough, each excuse could come back to a matter of not having the time to go. Each guest seemed to have a very good reason for not attending, but at the end of the day making Jesus the priority in their lives, being able to stand by a commitment, and maybe a little bit of time management skills would have easily landed them at the banquet instead of spending time doing what they thought was more important. If you aren’t familiar with this parable I won’t spoil the end for you, but I would encourage you to go and read in Luke 14:21-24 to see what happens.
So what does all this have to do with us? I believe that when it comes to our time, we do the same thing to Jesus that the guests invited to this banquet do to the man who invited them. We make a commitment, and then we do not have “time” to stick by it and we make excuses. I have too much studying to do, too much laundry to fold, too much social media to check, too many people to visit, and we do not spend time growing closer to our King and growing His Kingdom. Each of us has the time we need to practice spiritual disciplines (quiet time, prayer/fasting, scripture memory, etc) that will help us grow closer to Jesus and in turn be more like Him, AND spend time with people for the sake of His Kingdom (what Jesus did).
The most important question we should be asking ourselves is, “How did Jesus spend His time?” The answer is that He spent it with God and with people. See Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for reference. Luke specifically lists several times where Jesus got away and spent time alone with His Father: Luke 6:12, 9:18, 11:1, and several more. Today in my quiet time I read in Luke 12 and verse 48 says, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” This verse is very sobering because we read that those of us who have more resources, more will be expected of us by God. My interpretation of this in relation to time is that each of us have the same 24 hours in a day and we should all be spending our time in a way that honors God. If we have more time, we should steward it all the more faithfully but regardless of how demanding we feel that our schedule might be, each of us is responsible for how we spend our time. I believe that for many of us more will be required because we actually have an abundance of the most precious resource on Earth: time.
(This post was written by Rachel W.)
By the River Together 