time well spent

I just read an article by Anne Lamott about time: finding it, guarding it, and using it purposefully. I am considering this article divine intervention, because I so needed to read it! I know I am not the only person struggling to find the balance between time with God, time with friends, time with work, time at the gym, time for every other thing I have to get done, and just me time. It seems as though we have too much of time when we just want it to pass and not nearly enough of it when we could use more. Why is it like this? Why are we perpetually looking for balance in our time and constantly feeling like we are still missing it?

For me, it has come down to something pretty simple: I have made my life about me and not about Jesus.

The “me” life looks like this: I have to wake up super early to get to the gym so that I feel somewhat ok about my figure; I have to work like a mad woman so that I can keep my head above water financially, and, oh yeah, impress everyone with what that masters degree got me; I have to keep my apartment really clean so anyone who stops by doesn’t think any less of me; I have to do this, this, and that for this reason and this reason and that reason. My days revolve around the things I want and have decided I really need, and also the perception I want others to have of me (for the record, there are 16 versions of myself in the above paragraph: me, my or I… which is entirely too much me).

The life that is “about Jesus” looks so wonderfully different: I wake up early and feel overwhelmingly blessed to have a healthy, moving, functioning body—and grateful that after 10 left knee surgeries God so graciously grants me the ability to walk every day and be a good steward of this body I’ve been given, a temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in. I work because I have been blessed with gifts, talents and opportunities; I do my jobs like God is my boss, because, well, ultimately He is; treating people with respect and understanding, listening well and offering what I can to the situation; and it becomes my pleasure to serve in the industries that also happen to write me a check at the end of every month. I take care of the home I have been blessed with because I want it to be a place that anyone, including me, feels comfortable in; so that laughter and fellowship happen around a table and over a meal that we are so privileged to be eating; so that discussions about things that matter happen in my small living room; so that people are cared for and prayed for in a safe place; so that Jesus himself would want to dwell in the walls He has given me to dwell in. Everything changes when life becomes about Jesus… everything.

Jesus brings a radically new perspective to life. All of a sudden, the things I am desperately looking to find time for either happen naturally or become unimportant. Work is a blessing and can also be glorifying to God; health is blessing and one component of equipping me to serve Jesus with enthusiasm and energy; my home is blessing and not in any way, shape or form a burden; the people in my life are blessings and not check boxes on a to-do list; the more Jesus increases, the more I decrease, and the easier it all gets. When I allow grace and the relentless love of God to be the motivating force of my life, the shape of my time feels freer, more balanced, even more fun.

As I sit at my computer at my favorite Starbucks writing these words, I can’t help but think about how much I treasure this… this time to write, to think on paper, to put together the puzzle pieces of what I am learning in my own life to share with others, to move slowly through the work of articulating something even worth sharing, and all the while sipping my favorite drink in the world (Grande iced coffee with sugar free vanilla and a little bit of half and half- perfection in a cup). I love the hours spent here, and I have yet to walk away thinking of them as wasted- and that’s likely because I am focused so much on what God wants from me during this time. Truly, anytime I intentionally invite God along to anything I am doing, the time never feels wasted.

I realize how cliché the thoughts on time can be: that minutes become days, days become weeks, weeks become months then years, and that all adds up to your life. But when each of those things- minutes, days, weeks, months, and years- become all about Jesus and less about me, time is irrelevant: it is simply there for me do what God wants me to do while I can.

Better is one day in your courts, Lord, than a thousand days elsewhere…

The life that is all, and I mean all, about Jesus… that is time well spent.