Life Lessons-Time

Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.
~ Harvey MacKay

How many times do you say “if only i had the time!” I would do this if I had the time. Im going to do that when i find the time. When i get time im going to do blah blah blah. How often do you ever find that time? How much time do you dedicate to trying to find that time?

We often throw the word time out there like it is a commodity. Something that we have to find or buy or have. But stop for a few minutes, take the time, to really think about time! It is free and we get to use it however we want. What are you using your time for? What do you want to find time to do but have not?

I was thinking this weekend about all the stuff that i had to do and where was i going to find the time! I realized how much stuff i do that i dont really need to do! How much time i waste on things that arent truly necessary to anything or anyone other than myself! For instance, time on the computer or for some, time spent watching TV. I stopped watching TV 4 years ago. I remember one night laying in bed exhausted and struggling to stay awake to watch some reality TV show. It dawned on me what a waste of time it was! I was exhausted, i needed sleep and yet i was not doing it because of some stupid show that had absolutely no impact on my life other than it was interesting! Which would be more productive, a pointless TV show or sleeping an extra hour?! Sleep won!

It frustrates me when people say they dont have the time to work out or be healthy! I work 10+ hours most days and for several years was a single mom of two young children. It wasnt easy but i found the time to go and work out! I didnt do a lot of things that i would have liked to have done so that i could have the time to go and workout. In the two and a half hours i have been back in the gym my workouts average between 30-45mins. thats it! I dont waste my time in the gym any more than i waste it watching TV! I want something that is more important! If you really want to look better and be healthier, you will stop making excuses and give up some TV or computer time and head to the gym or out for a walk or buy a jump rope or doing lunges up and down your living room or crunches using the couch! There are many ways to get into shape that only take you and a small amount of your time!

What we choose to spend our time doing is our choice! Certainly there is work and other things that have to be done but there are many things that we choose to do with our time. We choose to be on the internet! We choose to watch TV. We choose to do church things. We choose how much we do for others. Our time is our choice!

The next time you are wondering where you are going to find the time to do something stop and look at the things that you are currently doing with your time! Make a priority list! What is important? What is for fun? What is necessary for work? What is really just a waste of time? What is only for yourself? What is for others? Stop and really think about it!

Prioritize and use your time for what you want to! Stop making excuse for not having the time to do things! We all have the same amount of time, how we use it is where some succeed and others fail!

Life Lessons-Character

Distance tests a horse’s strength. Time reveals a person’s character.
~ Chinese Proverbs

Have you ever met someone in person or online and thought, wow, this seems like a pretty cool person. It seems like everybody loves them and thinks pretty highly of who they are and what they know. Then the longer you know them or are exposed to them, the more you start to realize that they arent all that everybody thinks they are or says that they are. The more time that goes by, the more their true character is revealed!

Todays world is a whole heck of a lot different than what it was 50 years ago. It used to be that everybody worked hard and they earned respect by being a better person than those around them at whatever they did. They might not have been perfect but they didnt claim to be either. They did what they did, they worked hard at it and then they went home and took care of whatever needed to be done there. Things arent that way anymore!

With the ease of the internet, people can pretend to be anybody they want! They can find information with a few strokes of the keyboard and google! They can sit behind the computer and act like they are something that they arent! The worst thing about it is that after a few months or years, they actually believe that they are the faux guru that they play! But are they? When things get hard or dont go their way, how do they respond?

It doesnt matter what you say you are or who you pretend to be, who you are when time goes by and things get tough, that is you! That is your true character! Mr Faux Guru on the internet but when pushed over time they melt down and go off and ramble around in circles and try and prove themselves but instead they reveal a complete lack of character that undermines any knowledge that they might have! Time reveals the true character of a person! As the days and weeks and months go by, how one responds, how one deals with disappointments, how one handles adversity, that is what you truly are, that is the character that is you!

What is time revealing about your character? Are you true to yourself and those around you? When difficult times come and things get rough, who is going to be left by your side? People who are making something of themselves or people who just talk about it? Is time going to reveal you to be a man or woman of character or will it reveal that you had no character to begin with? All the alleged knowledge and ability means nothing if one has no character to back it up!

Timing

“Yet the cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.  Now it happened at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream, and behold he was standing by the nile.”   Genesis 40:23,41:1

We all know the story of Joseph and the dreams that he had and how he was his dads favorite and his brothers hated him and sold him into slavery.  He was taken to Egypt and sold to potipher and potiphers wife said he tried to have his way with her and he was thrown into prison.  He was in prison for a few years and the chief cupbearer and baker were put in prison and he interpreted their dreams and everything happened just the way he said it would.  He asked the cupbearer to remember him so that maybe he could get out of prison because who wants to spend their life there!

Think of how it must have felt to Joseph, as a young boy he dreamed that his family would be bowing down to him.  Then you get sold, i guess that was better than being killed, but still how terrifying that must have been.  Taken to a foreign land and forced to serve people you couldnt understand!  How far away that dream must have been!  To be thrown into prison after being falsely accused and a nobody!  No family to come check on you, no one who knows you to help you, alone!

Joseph interprets the dreams and asks for the cupbearer to remember him, please, anyone, to help him get out of somewhere where he didnt belong!  Think of the great story the cupbearer could have told the first day out of prison when he was restored!  Hey everybody, there was this guy in prison and he interpreted my dream!  It was so cool, everything happened just like he said!  A story like that would have spread like wildfire!  But no, no story was told!

Two years went by!  Think of how Joseph must have been feeling in prison.  Felling like he was forgotten by man and God!  Nobody to help him, waiting for anything, anybody so that he could get out!  Where was the dream now?

Im sure that Joseph had a lot of time to think and to cry out to God!  Why me God?!  What about the dream God?!  Please get me out of here God!  Is this every going to change?!  Will i never get out of here?!  What are you going through or waiting for and crying out to God because your circumstance isnt changing on your timing?

We live in a society of instant results!  Cell phones and internet, everything happens in seconds these days!  We are so accustomed to wanting something and then getting results at our fingertips in no time!  Nobody wants to wait for anything!  I get frustrated if it takes the computer 20 seconds to load a page!  Whats wrong with this dang thing, why isnt it going faster!?

How often do we treat God like our computer?!  God, i need this, i need it right now!  Come on God, whats taking so long?!  God, it has been a whole 30 minutes, why havent i received an answer yet?!  Now God, i need it now!

Here is the thing, God doesnt work on our timing!  Not thousands of years ago and not today!  The bible tells us that to God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years but a day!  God has His own timeline and He isnt particularly concerned with our timeline!

The problem is that we are all about ourselves!  Me. me, me, me, I, I, I!  I want this now, I need this now, come on God, work with me!  The thing is it isnt about you!  It isnt about what you or I want, it is about what God wants and has planned!  Dont you think Joseph would have done things a lot different and yet look at how God used him and changed everything for him.  When he was old do you think he would have changed anything?  NO!  Look at all he did and the difference that he made for so many people!  Gods plan is perfect!

When I was in the hospital after having Zac and i was laying there and God gave me the plan to build a clinic and get off the road and be more available for my children, i was all fired up about it!  I talked to my parents and i had a plan and i had it all figured out and time went by and nothing really changed.  Property had to be sold and it was on and off again and it seemed like it wasnt going to go.  I remember praying and telling God, “God, if you really want me to do this than let the sale go through.  Otherwise God, im going to figure you dont want me to do it and im going to do something else.”  I was all about me and what i wanted and what i thought was supposed to happen!

Here is the thing, God doesnt do things according to what we want.  When we accept salvation through the blood of Jesus, we belong to God!  Our life isnt about us any longer, it is about HIM!!  Now before you start thinking that doesnt sound very fair, remember, without Jesus, there would still be blood sacrifices offered for ones sins!  That means you would have to have cattle and sheep in your back yard and for every impure thought or lie or lust or gossip or whatever, you would have to go to the temple and kill it and get your forgiveness!  Let me tell you, belonging to God without that is an awesome thing!

God came through with His plans for the clinic but it was definitely on His timing and not mine.  It was over three years later before i opened the doors and it has taken another three years for it to be crazy busy!  Gods timing not mine!  But through all of that time He was growing me and changing me and pruning me and preparing me for where i am right now!  Without that time of growth and change, i would be making a huge mess of things right now!

What are you going through where there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel?  What is it that God has promised you and yet you still havent received it yet?  Are you impatient and trying to force things?  How is that going for you?  I know when i tried to force things i was more miserable and more discouraged and more fearful!  I have learned that when i am waiting upon the Lord, regardless of how long i am waiting, there is peace inside of me despite what it looks like from the outside!

I challenge you to step back and sit down and look at the circumstances around you.  What is God having to do to you to prepare you for what He has promised you?  Dont you think that if you are a willing participant in that process that it will go smoother and easier than if you are fighting it and rushing it?  Look at what all happened for Joseph, that is Gods promise fulfilled because Joseph waited on the Lord!

Jesus, thank you for your promises to me!  thank you that it isnt about me or my timing because my life would be a total wreck if it was.  Thank you that you are perfect in all that you do and your plans are at the right time!  help me to continue to trust in you always and in all things!  My life is yours Lord and it is so much better than if it were mine!