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This world places great emphasis on time. With the impending notion of “time running out”, people have garnered an increasingly strong desire to properly manage time spent on this earth. As such, time management has become a key concept in our lives. Various ways are available to aid in managing this time we have on earth – clocks, watches, calendars, schedules, timetables etc. Time management is taught in schools and at workplaces where teachers, students and workers learn that “Time is of the essence” and “Time is Money”.
In life, people have to learn to prioritise their time to stay afloat. Without time management, one would be “wasting time” and not spending it on anything “fruitful.” People talk about time management as if time is a commodity that has to and can be controlled. This emphasis of time management has led to people’s belief that they can harness and control time. They want to be in full control of their present and future. Time, however, is totally uncontrollable. Remember the simple English proverb: “Time ….. waits for no man”.
Man wants to control time but the only one in control of time is God. God appoints times and seasons for our earthly pursuits, making them good for His purposes in their own time. The events in our lives do not appear randomly. For Christians, there are no such things as coincidences; only God appointed events that build towards His ultimate purpose for us. Time management is a useful skill in our time on earth but it must not be our main focus in our lives. Micromanaging our lives will result in a desire to be in full control and to be “like God”. God must always be in full control and we are to simply submit to His control. We daily come to Him to ask for His guidance in all that we do with the time He has given us.
Events take place in our lives and we need to manage time, schedules and plan our days. The Bible teaches that “humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps” (Proverbs 16:9). Hence, instead of putting complete trust in ourselves and the schedules we create, our dependence and trust must be in God. He has plans for us, much greater than the daily schedules we make. The past is gone, the present is here and the future is uncertain but we can be assured that our loving and faithful God has set out for us “a time for everything”.
