Making Time to Seek Shalom

Time is a valuable resource that God gives us to enjoy His creation, to be in community with others, and seek Shalom in our daily lives. What we do with time and how we manage time can lead to shalom and rest, but it can also lead to stress and frustration. A concept that helps me manage my time is a boundary. Cloud and Townsend define boundary as “anything that helps to differentiate you from someone else or shows where you begin and end” (33). A boundary helps us set appropriate limits on physical and emotional interactions between me and other people.

To define our boundary space, I invite you to stand up and stretch both arms out with your fingers extended. Everything from your fingertips down to the floor is your boundary space – your physical body, your emotions, your intellect, your finances, and your time. Cloud and Townsend also share this insight regarding how we manage our boundaries: “We are responsible to others and for ourselves” (30). Being responsible to others is denying ourselves to do for others what they cannot do for themselves. This is being responsible to. All of us have daily responsibilities that we need to do ourselves. No one can do certain things for us. We must take ownership. We are expected to deal with our own feelings, attitudes, and behaviors before the face of God. And time is certainly a resource that is within my boundaries, and I must help others respect my time, as well as me respecting the time of others.

I use a very simple time management model to help me prioritize the tasks, the importance of each task, and the time it takes to complete each task. This model uses an A-B-C structure where the “A” items are high-priority tasks that have a deadline and should be completed first and preferably on that day. The “B” items are medium-priority tasks that do not have a specific deadline but need to be done when possible. The “C” items are the more enjoyable and personal tasks in my day – like going out for ice cream with my wife or going for a bike ride. Having this structure is helpful, but what it can’t do for me is to determine how much time is needed to complete each task or dictate whether other resources are needed to complete each task.

In addition, not all time is created equally. My work time is very different than my personal family time. My church time and responsibilities are different than my recreational and leisure time. Some aspects of time are dictated by another person or an organization. In those cases, I am put into a schedule and commitment that may not be controlled by me. So, a key factor in me stewarding my time wisely is to determine whether I have control over the time and tasks or if someone else has control.

One of the more challenging aspects of stewarding my time is delegating. I have learned in my adult life that delegation does not come easily for me. I tend to not delegate because I would prefer to do the task myself rather than risk someone else not completing the task up to my standard. As a parent, I tried to model and follow a very simple, yet difficult principle to follow: “Don’t do for others what they can do for themselves.” Rather than tying my child’s shoes because I could do it faster, I would let them tie their shoes themselves. In my work setting as a professor, I delegate tasks to our student employees who assist us with academic tasks. I am certainly capable of completing these tasks myself, but it’s a better use of my time to delegate.

One final idea that pertains to how I steward my time relates to the balance between a desire for efficiency and productivity with a desire to engage with and enrich life with God’s creation and my neighbors more fully. As I consider new demands on my time, I regularly ask myself, “Will this new activity or commitment help me be more productive, or does it give me an opportunity to serve others and help me and others achieve shalom?"

In the past decade or two, my answer to this question is filtered more often through the second part of this question – to find ways to serve others. I can live a faithful and abundant life if my time commitments are more outward-focused and less inward-focused. My identity as a husband, parent, or professor is quite secure; whereas my identity as a child of God is a daily response to the call outlined in Matthew 25: 35-40: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." Although I daily fall short of meeting all the needs mentioned in Matthew 25, I strive to use my time inspired and shaped by God’s love and grace.