Time is like money in the bank. Just like we can break down a dollar into quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies, we can break our day into hours, minutes and seconds. We can choose to spend our money however we desire. Although we don't have as much control over how we spend our time, we still make choices on how we will invest many of our hours, minutes and seconds.

I have known this all my life but after that meeting with my friend, I saw my activities, too many tasks on my to do list and self-imposed guilt through a new light. I walked through our backdoor, past the laundry room with piles of clothes waiting to be washed or folded, the powder room that needed some TLC, the pile of unorganized newspaper coupons piled on the kitchen counter, past my new almost unused sewing machine, into our bedroom to change. I pulled out drawers that had given up hope for any order, sighed when I opened my closet and remembered the winter clothes needed to be stored for the summer, quickly jammed shut the bathroom drawer filled with years-old cosmetics, hairpins....Then I walked into my office, sat down at the desk and reviewed all the unfinished ministry tasks. I looked at the pictures of our grandchildren and thought of all the fun things I wanted to do with them that had somehow stayed simmering on the backburner of my daily life.

And instead of feeling the familiar self-recrimination that these vignettes typically produced - that I was just lazy and disorganized.....I remembered what my friend with the 168 hour a week chart told me, "You have to view your time like you would a paycheck designed to pay your bills. If you don't make wise choices with your paycheck, you have to steal from one account to pay another bill. It's the same with time. You say your family and grandchildren are your priority, that you want to write, that deep relationships are critical. Yet you live with a low grade simmering guilt every day because of unfinished tasks. Look at this chart and realize that you are trying to push 336 hours worth of living into 168 hours. You react to opportunities and urgent needs and give them the power instead of pro-actively budgeting your time within the context of your life purpose and values."

This time when I walked past my new sewing machine, I didn't feel like a lazy, undisciplined woman who never follows through with her big ideas. I accepted that I had chosen to spend my time at my desk rather than teaching my granddaughter how to sew. And that I could change that choice just as quickly as I made it. Hope and power over the tyranny of the urgent replaced self-imposed guilt. Someone once said that you can tell what a person's real priorities are by looking at their checkbook. Looking at the way we spend our time is even more revealing.

Viewing the checkbook of my time has brought me up short. Since that conversation, I view my 168 hours quite differently. My first step was to acknowledge that God gave me enough hours every day to accomplish His purposes. I don't need more hours in my day. My second step is to review all my dreams, goals and responsibilities through the grid of my life purpose and personal values.

168 hours...How are you spending yours?

In His Grip,
Sharon