The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.
Who does NOT need to be reminded of these ideas? I know that I certainly do.
Time is zero sum, its value is actually greater than money because we never get back the minutes we have today. And how are we spending them? As Warren reminds us, relationships are the most important thing in life. All of the Ten Commandments focus on relationships: the first four with our relationship to God, the last six with our relationships to other people. As the apostle John wrote eloquently:
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3: 16-20 NIV)
Warren’s observation that “Busyness is a great enemy of relationships” is so true. That is why each day, I think it is so important to remember “the holy word ‘NO’” when it comes to taking on additional commitments and obligations that will translate into less time to spend with those who matter most: God, our family, and our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the exhortation of Dr. Richard Swenson in his book “Restoring Margin to Overloaded Lives.”
Let us never forget that each day, we are engaged in a spiritual battle that is very real and tangible: the injuries and casualties of this ongoing conflict are evident all around us if we just open our eyes to look. The choices we make each moment of each day are our “next strategic moves” in this conflict. Rather than serve as slaves to our work day planner or the perceptions of others, let us choose to serve our Creator.
That means devoting TIME to our relationship with Him, and to our relationships with others. We need to spend a large quantity of time in these relationships in order to realize the quality of time which we need and yearn for.
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On this day..
- Google Hangouts 101 and Sharing Lessons with Google Tools – 2014
- Playing with Media in Houston, Texas – 2011
- Education can empower us with skills to act upon the world – 2010
- Sketchcasting: A combination of blogging, talking and drawing! – 2010
- Lots of phone stalls, but not many phones! – 2010
- T3 Grant Notes (ARRA Stimulus funds for Educational Technology competitively released by the Texas Education Agency) – 2009
- Podstock Southwest in El Paso – 6-7 August 2009 – 2009
- Discussing GirlsGoGames.com – A conversation about values and media literacy – 2009
- Moodle as “the killer app” – 2008
- The benefits of unplugging – 2008