buying time, pt 1

(A repost from March 21, 2011)

Soon after giving birth last year, I discovered my innate penchant for wasting time. Time which could not be wasted. I quickly learned I needed to prioritize my life and cut out unfruitful activities. It meant I had to look hard at what I truly valued and start the process of repositioning my life to match my values. 

In my efforts to do this, I learned there’s a lot of “dead time” which could be used to develop in activities which, prior to having a child, I would have said I didn’t have time for.  For me, “dead time” involves doing activities that don’t require a lot of mental effort: getting ready in the morning, exercising, changing diapers, eating, folding clothes, cleaning the house. During these times, I could do something to grow vocationally or spirtually.

Paul, in Ephesians 5:16 (NASB), tells us to “make the most of our time because the days are evil.” Living in a fallen world means we have a propensity to waste time on activities which do not have true value, activities like surfing the internet, watching mindless TV programs, gossiping, worrying, etc. Because of this, we must intentionally do things which build us up.

For the next few Mondays for the rest of March and April, I’ll list ways we, as busy mothers, can buy time, despite our busy lifestyles. For many years, I was deceived into thinking that to do these activities would take GOBS of time which I don’t have. After praying about this issue and struggling with it, God showed me how easy and painless it is to engage in the disciplines I’ll be listing here.

So without further ado, here’s the first three activities we can do to make the most of our time. While getting ready in the morning, driving, changing a diaper, feeding a baby, or performing chores around the house, you can:

1) Listen to a good sermon or the audio Bible (I like Max McLean’s Listener’s Bible)

2) Memorize one verse of the Bible. Just carry an index card around with you with the verse printed out.)

3) Sing to your child. (This could be a song which has the double effect of learning: like the ‘ABC Song’ or teaching them a story/principle from the Bible: like a popular Sunday school song like ‘Jesus Loves Me’)

If anyone out there has any other ideas, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll include your idea in future posts (giving credit to you of course!). Also, if you leave an idea along with a blog link, I’ll include that in a future post as well.