THEARTOFCHRIST — Issue 30: Time Management
Time Is Redeemed, Not Managed
How Christ brings about life, and how He supplies it more abundantly.

Anchor: Redeem the Time

The herald announces the sentence first, because the sentence is the whole lesson. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil (Eph 5:15-16, paraphrase). Time, in this order, is not something the man manages. It is something the Lord redeems. The redeemer is named before the day begins.

The world reads time management and builds a program around it. The diagnosis is counted: too many tasks, too few hours, distractions everywhere, procrastination, exhaustion. The remedies follow the count: make a plan before the day starts, list the tasks in order, set deadlines that can be met, take breaks to stay sharp, silence the notifications, put the phone away, sleep enough to face the morning. None of the observations are false. The order is upside down.

A program built on managing time treats time as a possession to be divided, and the man as the manager of his own hours. The day becomes a ledger. Did I use the hours well? Did I finish the list? Did I waste the afternoon? The man who finished the list reads the finished list as proof that he owns his day. The man who wasted the afternoon reads the wasted afternoon as proof that he does not. The life that was meant to be lived becomes an audit, and every hour becomes evidence entered for or against the accused.

Apart from Christ, time itself becomes ownership. The man is alienated from the life of God (Eph 4:18, paraphrase), and so he appoints himself the steward of his own days. He budgets the hours, he guards the hours, and he stands trial under the hours. The creature who cannot add a single hour to his life by worrying is given the job of mastering his hours, and the failure is read as a lack of effort. Plan better. Rise earlier. Waste nothing. The verdict never changes, because the manager and the managed are the same man.

Scripture bears witness to how old this is. The connectors reveal the movement: the days are numbered, the vapor is named, and the walk is set last.

Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom (Ps 90:12, paraphrase). The numbering is not taught by the man to himself. It is asked of God. The prayer comes first, and the wisdom follows from it. The man who numbers his own days without the prayer only counts what he cannot keep.

James names the vapor plainly. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (Jas 4:14, paraphrase). The mist does not manage itself. It appears, and it vanishes, and no plan stretches it. The man who builds his life on managing the mist has mistaken accounting for living.

So the seasons are given, and they must be read in the right order. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven (Eccl 3:1, paraphrase). A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted (Eccl 3:2, paraphrase). The times are appointed, not invented. The man does not set the seasons. He walks in them, and the walking is the wisdom.

The thread runs straight: the man cannot manage his time, because his time was never his to manage.

The answer is not a better plan. The answer is a Redeemer who buys back the days.

Making the best use of the time (Eph 5:16, paraphrase) is, in the tongue of the apostle, redeeming the time — buying it back, as a man buys back what was sold. The days are evil, and the evil days have already taken their toll. The man does not redeem the days by planning harder. The days are redeemed for him, and the redemption comes before his day begins. The verdict on his hours was given at the cross, before his morning list was written.

Then comes the reversal of time management, and it is a gift, not a technique. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble (Matt 6:34, paraphrase). The day is given its own trouble, and its own sufficiency. The man who hears this no longer stands before an open ledger, waiting for his planning to grow strong enough to cover his hours. The trouble of today is enough, because the Lord of today is enough.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matt 6:33, paraphrase). The seeking comes first, and the adding follows from it. The order matters. The kingdom is not added after the man has managed his day into shape. The kingdom is sought, and the day is ordered by the seeking. That is why the redeemed day holds where the planned day fails: the Redeemer is not the man.

In Christ, time is received, then walked in.

The man hears that his hours are not a possession to be budgeted but a gift to be walked in, and the hearing itself is the gift — God gives hearing, and God gives growth. The wasted afternoon, the list unfinished, the deadline missed, the hour that slipped through his hands are all answered before the day begins: the Lord who finished the work is the Redeemer who bought the days, and the man walks carefully because the days are already bought, not because his plan has finally grown strong.

Walking carefully, in this order, is not a technique for squeezing more from the hours. It is the shape of a man who trusts that the time is already redeemed. The plan made, the task ordered, the break taken, the distraction set aside, the sleep kept at its hour — these are not proofs that the man owns his day. They are fruit, borne in the order grace set: redemption first, walking second, life third.

Rest, in this order, belongs inside the redeemed day rather than outside it. The program that drives the man to exhaustion and calls it productivity has mistaken punishment for stewardship. The redeemed day includes sleep, food, and rest. The man who sleeps is not wasting the hours. He is walking in the season appointed for sleep, because the night was made before his plan was written.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work (John 9:4, paraphrase). The day is given, and the night is given, and both are appointed. The worker does not panic at the coming night. He works while it is day, because the day is his to walk in, and the night is not his to fear.

Time Management Reaches the Body

Every topic in this workshop relates to physical life, and time management is bodily through and through — the hands that begin the task at its hour, the eyes that turn from the distraction, the mouth that eats at its time, the legs that rise and rest at their seasons, the body that sleeps when the night comes. Christ supplies this life more abundantly (John 10:10, paraphrase), and the abundance is not a fuller calendar. It is days already bought back, showing themselves in the body.

The world's program counts the hours: the plans made, the lists finished, the deadlines met, the breaks taken, the distractions silenced, the sleep banked. Apart from Christ, the count is the verdict: the man who is alienated from the life of God (Eph 4:18, paraphrase) treats even his hours as a work to master, and so his days become another place where he is cut off from life.

In Christ, the sentence is reversed. The man manages his time becomes the Lord redeems the days, and the reversal is not the man's achievement. The redemption came before he planned, the kingdom was sought before the day was ordered, and the seasons were appointed before he walked in them. The man who receives the redeemed days does not wait for his planning to grow strong. He has already been given a Redeemer. The days are bought. The walk is careful, not because the man has finally mastered his hours, but because the grace that bought them is training him to walk in them.