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Where did all the time go?


 Just some ramblings.

I have been off the grid for the last few months, life just happens. Work and projects just take over. In recent times I have taken on a new project that is taking more of my time and focus than I have been used too for many years. Steering it through people, who for the most part want the results but don’t necessarily want the change, is tiring to say the least. Many people can’t see the wood for the trees.  On the home front my wife is complaining that I am home in body only, my mind is still at work, still working through the details of my strategic plan. All in all it would seem that I have forgotten that needy people are just that, needy, and that they can drain you very quickly with their demands and expectations.
It is time for me to step back and reassess, after all I like everyone else only have 24 hours in a day. I was reminded, this last weekend at church, that the most precious resource and gift that I can give someone is time, my time. But I need to accept that there are times that I need to ration that time and make sure that it is working for me not me for it.
It has been estimated, by greater minds than my own, and who it would seem, have more time than I, that over a working life time, between that ages of 18-65 a person will spend 82080 hours in employment and 6480 hours in church. So besides the obligatory sleep what else do we do with our time?
Employment practices are different all over the world. In the USA for instance you may be contracted to do a set number of hours a week but it is expected of you to work longer, sometimes twice as long. Though studies have shown that productivity in the USA is not that much greater than some of the Scandinavian countries that work only 4 day weeks. Why work yourself into an early grave?
But What of Christian practice? My place of work is just that, my place of work. All my appointments are set around it; my diary is filled with one on one’s, meetings and strategy sessions, planning and reflection, study and preparation time. When I go home it is time for family and friends, hobbies and sport. Everyday not just on Sundays I have a focus on God but Sunday is the day where I pay special attention to him.
But what of the other waking hours? Is my focus on reaching the lost for Christ trying to speak peace and faith into their lives or do I waste it playing video games on my computer or hide behind the important projects that I need to complete?

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