Delegate that which is time-consuming
1 Corinthians 7:29 (NLT) – “But let me say this, dear brothers and sisters: The time that remains is very short.”
Time. What a fascinating word. So short, seemingly simple, and yet one of life’s greatest mysteries. For the last month or so, the three of us who currently live in our household have been listening to a 15-minute audio from one of our favorite apologist philosophers and discussing as we eat our dinner together at the table each evening. For a couple of weeks we’ve been immersed in thinking about how God relates to time. There’s atemporality and omnitemporality and all manner of long words that elude all but a tiny fraction of my understanding. Time is one of our most precious commodities yet seems to pass at varying rates for various reasons. During unpleasant seasons of life, time can seem to proceed at a painstakingly plodding pace. During jubilantly joyous occasions, time can be deliciously sweet. We can retrospectively look back and feel like years flew past.
Along the way in our discussions, this thought has percolated – I wonder if it’s possible to have a normal conversation about any topic at all without words relating to time cropping up? For example, “before”, “after”, “now”, “then”, “minute”, “day”, “month”, “year”, “season”, “soon”, “once”, “early”, “late”, “clock”, “time”, the list goes on. I haven’t tested this theory, but it’s an interesting idea. We are so tied to time that it colors and flavors every part of our lives. And yet God has revealed Himself to us as “I am” and He invites us to be present with Him, ourselves, and others in the present moment. We don’t need to be stuck in worry about the future. We don’t need to be stuck in regret about the past. Of course, we are all tempted to get stuck at times. The Lord desires us to be free, and freedom comes by the Holy Spirit in the present. We don’t only hold the hope of heaven – we can experience the Kingdom of God breaking through right now in the present.
I remember clearly one of my university professors telling us in a class on project management that the task will always expand to fill the time available. That one piece of advice has been so helpful over the years. One of the great levelers in life is that we are each given the same 24-hour period each day. The earlier in life we come to the realization that “I can’t do it all” and resign from being the Savior of the world or the Savior of my child or the Savior of whatever situation we’re in that we think we’re supposed to fix, the earlier we can experience the freedom to live and act and choose and be the deeply loved children of God He created us to be.
Our Scripture today tells us that the time that remains is “very short.” The apostle Paul wrote this about 2000 years ago. Even though we might think of “very short” as a couple of days or a couple of years, tops, we know this much for sure – we must choose carefully how we spend the time we’ve been given. No one else will be held accountable for how you or I spend our time. That’s between each of us individually and God. I encourage each of us to hold our calendars and our lives before the Lord, in the light of His presence, and receive wisdom and direction from Him as to how we spend our time.
The part I want to highlight very briefly today within this wider discussion on “time” is to delegate that which is time-consuming. The best way to figure that out is to ask God for wisdom. There are any number of sources out there who will tell us how to streamline, prioritize, simplify, be efficient, and all that. We’re not going to thrive just by doing common sense or formulaic things, as good and helpful as they may be. God is faithful – He will show you what to do in your life, your family, your community, your situation. We’re probably only rarely, if ever, going to feel like we have 100% certainty in hearing from God – but God promises to shine His light on our path. Even if we don’t hear perfectly (which none of us does), God delights when we seek Him and will nudge us in the direction in which He wants us to go if we veer off into some underbrush. Even a small amount of delegating can go a long way towards bringing order into chaos or some breathing room into a tightly packed schedule. On a practical note, it might be helpful to jot in a notebook over the course of a week how you actually spend your time. You might be surprised at what you discover. You may already know which tasks consume the most time in your life.
I don’t derive any particular pleasure from fighting the crowds at Walmart’s brick and mortar store. It actually adds stress sometimes, if the checkout lines are too long or I can’t find all of the items I’m looking for. Not a big deal in the overall scheme of things. But last autumn, well before the pandemic began, I decided to delegate the selecting of groceries from the shelves to an employee by using their online grocery ordering system. If the exact item I’ve ordered is not available, they offer to make a substitution with an item of equal or greater quality. Because it was a fairly new service, there is virtually no wait time. Interestingly, even though many people have started using online grocery ordering recently, it’s still a vastly underutilized service and easy to get a slot. For me, delegating this time-consuming weekly task of grocery shopping has become a joy. It’s also led to deeper conversations and connections with employees (possibly since there are no impatient bystanders) – one of my new “panpals” (friends made during pandemic) is Kyle, a young man with a tender heart and great leadership potential.
What about you? What time-consuming task is the Lord highlighting to you that you could experiment with delegating? Lean into Him – He is faithful and trustworthy and true – He’s got you and loves you completely.
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