See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15-16, NKJV)
Maybe you noticed the “we’re back” promotions the PGA Tour was running in the weeks of its return to competition and to television. These ads featured a number of homemade trick shot videos, where golfers like you and me did creative things to land their ball in a frying pan, a drinking cup, or whatever other household receptacle made for fun.
Now, I’m sure you understand that these were almost certainly not one-shot wonders. The golfers involved tried again and again until their cameras caught the shot that worked. And maybe you thought, Who has the time?
How others spend their time can be a landing place for a lot of self-supporting judgment, can’t it? When your neighbor takes another vacation, you may hear yourself muttering, “Doesn’t that guy ever work?” When your co-worker tells you about her weekend of binge-watching, you may say with satisfying smugness, “Wait till you have kids.” We’re no more gracious about assessing the way others spend their time than we are about assessing how they spend their money.
Still, we’re not altogether in trouble here. At least we recognize that time is a commodity. It comes to us equally and freely. But we can range widely in how we spend it—and thus, in how we waste it.
Many of us have financial advisers who keep us focused for the long run. Maybe we all could use a chronological adviser, too.
In the weeks ahead, many of you reading, if you have US citizenship, will have ample opportunity to spend time diving down deep holes of political wrangling and partisan expression. It’s only a season, like other seasons, but it provides an open door to the wide open fields of worthless wandering. As voters, we should be educated and wise, but we do not need to read another article demonizing the opponent or watch another video casting suspicion on those who would “take down everything we hold dear.” Not when we are called to redeem the time.
To redeem is to take something with little or no inherent value and give it worth. Your mother did this with Blue Chip Stamps when you were a kid, filling her book with paper tokens from the supermarket and trading them in at the redemption center for an iron or a toaster. You did something much like it when you turned in your tickets at the arcade for a balsa wood airplane or a pack of baseball cards.
Because time is free to us, we can tend to let it slip away, spending it on trinkets, per se. Or we can give too much worth to matters we deem important but that the Lord cares little about.
Many of us have financial advisers who keep us focused for the long run. Maybe we all could use a chronological adviser, too. We can start with the Lord, of course, asking for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in how we use our time each day. Add to this a kingdom-minded friend who can hold you accountable to the way you’re spending this valuable commodity and you might find yourself thriving like never before.
—
Jeff Hopper
September 2, 2020
Copyright 2020 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.