"A reporter interviewed a couple on their 60th wedding anniversary and asked the key to their successful marriage. The husband replied, “We decided 60 years ago that she would make the small decisions and I would make the big decisions. And in the past 60 years we’ve never had a big decision.”
At least this couple had a plan in place for family decision making, which probably meant they avoided wasting time floundering over simple family decisions.
Imagine how chaotic and inefficient a business would be if there were no clear lines of authority and responsibility. Imagine a church with no appointed leadership or no members officially assigned to coordinate specific ministries. Nothing could be accomplished under those circumstances. Yet somehow many people think the family is different, that there is no need for clear authority or structure.
The truth is, God wants everything we do to be done with excellence. That’s why He established order in the family- so we could redeem the time.
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"Many people claim they never have time for a vacation. When actually the problem is they take their vacation all through the year in extra 15 minute gossip sessions at the water cooler, extended lunch breaks, and overlong chat sessions with coworkers.
The idea of a vacation is a good one. And most of us can afford one if we discipline ourselves to work during work time. In fact, an extended vacation is a tactic some people use to refresh themselves mid-career. One former U.S. Secretary of Education booked a passage on a cargo ship from California to Australia after leaving office. A Fortune 500 executive told how she preferred to take one three week vacation instead of three one week vacations. For her, it took the better part of a week just to get settled into the vacation spot.
The bottom line is use the strategy that works best for you. God wants you to be diligent, but He also includes rest as part of redeeming the time.
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"Some people don't like to set goals because they've done it in the past and it hasn't helped them. In fact, it left them more discouraged than when they started because they ended up with a sense of failure at not achieving what they set out to accomplish.
The problem, however, may not be unrealistic goals as much as unrealistic time frames. Every goal should have a projected completion date. That which can be done at any time will be done at no time. But there’s an almost universal tendency to set those completion deadlines sooner than we can deliver.
If you have that tendency, step back and evaluate for a moment what is realistic based on your past performance, current obligations, and an allowance for the unforeseen problems that will arise along the way to completing your goal.
God’s plan for your life unfolds in His timing. Prayerfully discerning what that timing is to be, is a big part of redeeming the time.
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"Do you like little soft things? Babies are cute because they are little and soft. Kittens and puppies win our hearts because they are little and soft. Little soft things give us warm fuzzies inside.
Unfortunately, some of us also get warm fuzzies from making little soft choices in the daily disciplines of life that end up wasting our time. For example, in the Book of Proverbs the lazy man is described as one that chooses “a little sleep” and “a little slumber.” In other words he makes little soft choices to stay in bed a bit longer than he should.
At meal time, it’s easy to make little soft choices which eventually end up shortening our lives by several years. Business accounts are often lost because of little soft choices that allow the competition to get ahead while we rest on previous success.
Remember, getting God’s best involves doing the right thing the right way at the right time. That’s also how we redeem the time.
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