Well Spent

Parents who were cheering for school to start must have forgotten band practice, football practice, clubs, activities, track meets, parent/teacher conferences and any other school function that people think up.

School will barely be in session long enough for kids to learn anything before they are selling cards, candy and cookie dough.

It all makes me think of that funnel thing you see in malls sometimes called a gravity well, wishing well or hyperbolic funnel. It’s a simple game where pocket change is invited to race. You put a coin in the starting block and let gravity do the rest. As the coin completes each revolution, it gains speed and completes a shorter run.

I often feel that each year has a similar run.

Momentum brings each day or week faster and faster until you’re into holidays and celebrating a new year. You barely notice you spent all of that time and money in one way or another, but it is still spent. Was it well spent? Are you waiting for the year to “settle down” before you pick up those habits you have been neglecting? Are you hoping to find time for prayer or reading the Word?

Let me remind you of what you already know: You have to make time.

Without a budget, money will simply walk away without your knowledge. Without a plan for your time, you will sit down five or 10 years from now wondering why that habit never developed, that relationship fell apart or that you have not grown in your relationship with Christ.

Jesus sought God early in the morning. I am not going to fight for early morning prayer (though you could make the case), but I would push for more prayer and more Bible reading. Many things compete for your time. The things that you are doing may be good, but a lot of “good” things can get in the way of the few “best” things. Make time, because if you wait to find it, you will lose it all.

I’m seeing more and more the value of compounding small decisions over making grand gestures. When I see a lack of devotion in myself, I’m tempted to want to reboot with a lengthy prayer time followed by a broad and thorough study time. Failing to maintain this new routine is inevitable. But small decisions to pray for a few minutes (or a few extra), read a few verses that you will reflect on a couple of times throughout the day or commit a passage to memory are simple enough to be habit forming.