Making Time for Time

Time surrounds me. Clocks fill the spaces of my life. Nearly every device and appliance revels in the chance to mock me with the passage of time. Display after display reminds me that another hour has passed, another day has vanished, another year has run its course. There is no escaping the reality that as each moment heaves forward and each second flits away, time pulls me ever closer to my final breath.

So then, what am I to do? I must be more productive.

There is so much to do. I need to work more. I need to finish that project. I need to accomplish more in my life. I need to see more, hear more, do more. If I do not work harder and longer, I will squander my time. If I dare sit around as the minutes pass, I will achieve nothing in life. If I do not schedule more activities, more travel, more experiences, I will regret having wasted my years. There is so little time.

But what if we’ve got time all wrong?

In a productivity-obsessed culture where we expect our children to be in three extracurriculars minimum, where we have to juggle overtime and responding to those messages and engaging the latest stir on social media, where we can’t sit still for more than an instant, we deprive time of its value. We neglect to be present. We fail to make time for time.

As an upperclassman in college, I had the opportunity to counsel several young men in my church. When I first started, I would listen intently to what they told me about their week, their struggles, and the things they had questions about. I would listen to their words, process them, dissect them, yet neglect to hear the person across the table. Instead, I was searching for the opportunity to jump in with a Bible verse or some gleaming jewel of wisdom. I waited for my chance to opine on the virtues of the Christian life and convey to them the necessity of following Jesus all the more vigorously.

For all my genuine desire to care for my brothers, I spoke far too many of my words and heard far too little of theirs.

As I counseled more men in the following years, I began to realize something: my greatest asset wasn’t the wisdom I could impart (of which I had little to give anyway) but the time I could share with them. I was most impactful when I was most present. Being a consistent friend who sat still and listened and even shared moments of silence with them made far more of a difference in their lives than trying to say the most words I could in the time I had.

When I consider the ministry of Jesus, I see something similar. Yes, the Gospels are replete with the profound words and actions of the incarnate Son of God. Yet, if we only focus on the cinematic vignettes of Jesus’ ministry, we will fail to consider how much time he experienced living alongside his disciples.

Jesus focused his ministry on twelve men. These were men with whom he walked, ate, prayed, and listened. The world-upending ministry of Christ was characterized by three years of laboring alongside twelve men, not in leading an army, gaining political power, nor writing loquacious doctrinal treatises, but in being present in time and space with others. The power of that simple ministry is borne out by the fact that these men who walked with Jesus, who were with him in his final moments, who witnessed him in his resurrected body and saw him ascend into heaven, were then willing to lay down their lives for him as they planted the seeds of the New Testament church. These were men devoted to the almighty God who had entered time and space to be with them.

Our Lord made time to be present in the lives of the disciples. He understood the value of his short time on Earth. What about our time?

Instead of filling our schedules with yet another activity, yet another experience, yet another extracurricular, we could allocate that time to be present in the lives of those we love. We could sit and listen to them and even just be silent. We could evangelize our neighbors by inviting them into our lives day after day, week after week. We could invite them to join us at church to be present under the preaching of God’s word. We could take time from our busy schedules and experience it quietly—not necessarily in deep contemplation and introspection nor by filling it with more entertainment, but by removing ourselves from the constant stimulus of our screens and the unending pace of life. We could enjoy being in the moment, not filling the moment.

The power of Christianity is in the regular weekly rhythms of life—in attending to the means of grace each Lord’s day and living alongside one another. Our power is in displaying a gentle and quiet life to the world—in opening our homes and churches to share time with all kinds of people and allowing God to draw them to Jesus.

Yes, there is much to fill our time with. Yes, there is much to do. But time is more than just a currency. Instead of constantly spending it, let us also remember to be present in it.