"Continually staying focused on a goal is a vital part of good time management. Life’s major issues simply cannot be sorted out during TV commercials.
But like anything else, focusing on our goals has to be balanced. If you set out to climb a 14,000 foot mountain you would want to keep your main focus on the peak. That gives you vision and energy to continue on. But at some point during the journey you will get tired and quite possibly discouraged. When that happens you may need to stop and look back down the mountain at the progress you’ve made already.
That same tactic works in the climb of life. If God has given you a vision, stay focused on it. But remember to take a break if you need it and look back at what God has already done in your life.
Remember, stopping to count your blessings and reflect on the ground already covered may give the needed motivation to redeem the time.
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"The oldest person in modern times was Jeanne Louise Calment of France who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years. She took up fencing at 85 years old, was still riding a bike at 100, and did some acting at 114.
Most people would say Mrs. Calment lived a long time. And by most standards she did. But what qualifies as “a long time” really depends on what you compare it to. Methuselah, the oldest man in the Bible, lived 969 years. But even Methuselah’s life was very brief when compared to the amount of time every person will spend in eternity.
Eternity has been defined as time without end. Limitless time. Endless time. It is perpetual and everlasting time that you and I and every other person will spend somewhere. When you compare the longest earthly life with eternity you begin to realize that even if you do live a long time you still don’t live a long time.
That’s why we must redeem the time.
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"An August 2005 story from Reuters News told about a man who stopped at a gas station in Italy. When his wife got out for the restroom without him noticing, he drove away. But what made the news was the fact that he didn’t notice she wasn’t in the car until he was tracked down by police 6 hours later. He told the officers he hadn’t noticed her missing because she always rode in the back seat with their little girl.
I don’t want to be too hard on this fellow. I’m sure he’s already had a lot of explaining to do. But you can’t help but wonder how someone could go 6 hours in a car and not speak to their spouse. Maybe it made international news because it’s such an extreme example of a weakness many of us have- failure to communicate.
Most of us spend many hours going places with our families. Let’s make it a habit to talk about the things of God while we travel, so we redeem the time.
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"In his book “A Minute of Margin,” Richard Swenson writes, “Margin is like oxygen- everybody needs some. If we have too little, we suffer from the shortage. If we have too much, the excess will not benefit us additionally. But having the right amount permits us to breathe freely.
Margin is a space, specifically the space between our load and our limits. We do not follow two inches behind the next car on the interstate- that would leave no margin for error. We do not allow only two minutes to change planes in Chicago- that would be foolish in the extreme. We do not load boats until they are nearly submerged- that would invite disaster. Why then do we insist on leaving no buffer, no space, no reserves in our day-to-day?”
Swenson makes a good point. God wants us to carry a full load- but not an overload. When properly applied, the principle of establishing margin in our schedules will allow us to produce more, not less, so we redeem the time.
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