Simplify: Time

There is never enough time to do everything, or is there?

Looking through our days we have time when at work, time at play, time spent with others, time alone, time eating, and time sleeping. However, every day has the same number of hours included. Well, almost every day in the places that still observe the practice of “Daylight Savings Time”, because they get one 23 hour day and one 25 hour day a year. Many of us got to experience our 23 hour day this past weekend. However, no matter how we try and manipulate it, there are simply only a set number of hours to do the things we want to accomplish.

This fact requires us to assess what items for which we have time. If we try and do everything, ultimately we will only be able to set aside a small amount of time for each, and as such they may not bring as much joy, or not worth the sacrifice needed to make room for it. For instance, if you want to start taking an art class, it meets at a certain time, and you need to make the time necessary to take the class and do the work required. If art is something you are only marginally interested in, then you have to decide whether taking that class is worth the time.

Sometimes there are things that you know you need to add into your life such as: prayer and devotional time, exercise, church, Bible Study, work, sleep, etc. Adding this requires us to trim something or eliminate something to allow the space in our life. It is never as easy as we might think, because to start a new pattern requires us to break old patterns. It is the pattern of life that often leads to complexity, and the inability to make the necessary adaptations in our lives.

In the book, Love Wins by Bob Goff, he details how every Thursday he quits something. This practice always allows him the space to add something that may be life giving and fulfilling. Understandably, most of us are not as eccentric as Bob Goff, but the simplicity of the task of quitting something to make space is something we may all learn from. Most people have devotional time and exercise time in the morning. To put this practice into place, the space needs to be made in the morning, which means wake up earlier. This doesn’t just mean set the alarm to go off earlier, because that would be sacrificing sleep, which is essential to our health and wellness, but rather we need to go to sleep earlier. That undoubtedly requires quitting something in order to get to bed at the required hour to get a full night’s sleep.

Ultimately, if you are like me, and many people I know, I like to do everything. I run all the races, I work multiple jobs, I volunteer to help, I love spending time with friends, I love going on every vacation, I am go go go, never saying no, no, or no. When I do this I fill up the calendar, and I make my life very complex. Fortunately, I married someone that keeps me in check, and before I say yes, I need to check with her. This is the governor that God placed in my life in order to control me overly complicating my life.

To follow this path to simplify my life, I will take on the task to quit things and say no. Nothing but making space in my life for the things that matter most. I admit I have not been successful at this to this point in Lent, but I seek out the simple life, and offering to God, my time is my fortune, and in this offering I seek to glorify my Creator.