Owning Our Time: Part 1 - The Dilemma

When will we find time to serve the Lord?

Have you ever heard anyone say, "I wish I had more time to study the Bible." Or, "I would love to Serve God more, or be more active in the Church, but we are just so busy!" Such a statement has probably been heard often. There was even a time when I said that phrase myself. However, I have come to understand something about time. No one just HAS time. They don’t. There are only two ways to get more time: you either MAKE it, or your TAKE it. It is not more time that we seek: it is more discipline.

Every year we have 8,760 hours at our disposal. It is the most fair distribution of the most common gift ever given. Of those, we will spend approximately 2,920 hours sleeping, leaving us 5,840 of waking hours we can spend in pursuit of growing in Christ, being active in the Body of Believers, and serving the Lord. However, like most people, our time is not all our own: we have to work to keep the lights on, food on the table and in the fridge, and the roof over our heads. So when will we serve? Let’s take a look at our week.

For most Christians, the process goes like this:

“OK, when can I serve the Lord this week? Well, I’ll be at church Sunday morning. Then we have small group Monday night. Next, I will be serving as a leader with the Youth group while my wife volunteers with the nursery followed immediately by Choir practice. Then, we have a Breakfast Bible study Saturday morning. That covers our week!”

Let’s calculate up the time spent serving the Lord in the week above. Averaging out the time, we have a total of about 6 hours per week “Serving the Lord”. For the year, that tallies up to 312 hours. During the week, that does seem like a lot, but when considered against the 5,840 hours of wake time we have each year, it isn't much at all: barely over 5% of our time.

After a long day of work, we are already tired, possibly stressed, so it can make doing anything on a weeknight seem difficult…perhaps even impossible. And what about our families? We still need time for Husbands to love their wives, Wives to love their husbands, to raise up the children in the admonition of the Lord…we can’t sacrifice our familial duties, can we? Of course not.

Time can get away from us, and the above scenario seems to be the norm for most families. The only ones who seem to have real time to Serve the Lord, Share the Gospel, make Disciples, be Salt and Light are our Pastors, Ministers, and Missionaries. But that was never what was intended.

The call to serve is not exclusive to only the Vocational Christian. Every Christian who possesses within themselves the Holy Spirit of God is duty-bound to be a living sacrifice. However, when we approach our call to serve like the above scenario, it can seem daunting, but we are neglecting the most plenteous block of time in our week: our working hours.

Every year, we will spend approximately 2,685 hours working. That is almost half of our total waking hours. The sad truth is that most people simply shut off during their work week. Too often I have met Believers in the workplace who were snug as a bug in a rug beneath their bushel, with no aspirations whatsoever about coming out and letting their Light shine while they were on the clock. Like the rest of the world, they got consumed by the negative perspective of our work week. You’ve heard the sayings: “Working for the weekend!”, “Hump day!”, and “I hate Mondays.” We tend to view the time we spend at work as an interruption, keeping us from serving the Lord as fully as we could. But we would be wrong.

The workplace is the lost great mission field for the every-day follower of Christ. Take just a moment to consider all the people you work with: coworkers, peers, supervisors, direct reports, team mates, bosses, owners, etc. Now think about all other people beyond those working at your company you can engage while working: customers, vendors, sales representatives, business partners, delivery people, and others. Now, do a quick tally of all of those people that you see in a week. Here is the tough part: imagine that YOU are the only opportunity that any of them will have to see or hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Remember, no one has time: we have to MAKE it or TAKE it. If we do not TAKE the time we spend at work and MAKE it an opportunity for the Lord to work through you to outreach your coworkers, supervisors, managers, or direct reports…we will be guilty of wasting that time for His Kingdom.

2,685 hours a year. How will you serve the Lord during that time? And what are you waiting for?