"I recently heard an illustration of a woman who pulled out of a truck stop late one night and noticed a semi truck following her car. As she sped up the semi also sped up and stayed right on her bumper. Becoming frightened she exited the freeway only to be followed by the trucker.
She then ran through a stop sign only to see the trucker do the same, determined not to lose sight of her. Finally she found an open convenience store, drove under the lights and dashed inside to safety. When she looked back, she saw the trucker cornering a man who he had spotted climbing in her car at the truck stop.
Now isn’t that how we are with God at times? We waste years in fear running from the One who wants to help us, not even realizing what danger we’re in?
If you’re running from God today, pull over. God’s not out to get you. He’s out to save you. Don’t waste another day running, when you could be redeeming the time.
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"Through most of my college days, and for several years afterwards, I drove an old beat up 1970 Volkswagen camper van. You may remember them as the hippie vans. They were known among other things for their anemic horsepower and lack of aerodynamic design which resulted in very slow speeds.
When going down the interstate in the VW I would compensate for the faulty design by getting behind an 18 wheeler and riding in his draft. I don’t know if it was real or just my imagination, but it seemed if the truck broke the wind I could gain a few more miles per hour.
The VW taught me the wisdom of following behind someone bigger than myself, which is a valuable lesson for anyone who wants to make the best use of their time. What has God called you to do? Chances are someone else is already doing something similar. Why not invite them to lunch and asking them the best way to redeem the time.
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How long should you keep old documents around your home or office? That’s a question most of us need to answer at some point. But, rather than answer it haphazardly, you can create a tool, called a “retention schedule,” to answer that question for you.
Retention schedules classify how long we should keep a document by what type of document it is. For example:
Checks should be kept for 7 years
Duplicate deposit slips 1 year
Expired insurance policies 3 years
Deeds and mortgages, permanently
Accounts payable and accounts receivable ledgers 7 years
Routine correspondence with customers or vendors 1 year
Other general correspondence and memos you create 3 years
Creating these retention schedules helps us systematically reduce clutter so we’ll be more effective and stay focused on what is most important.
One document that never needs a retention schedule however is the Bible. God said His Word would endure forever. That’s why staying focused on it is a sure way to redeem the time.
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"What does the Bible actually mean when it says to “Redeem the Time?” Perhaps you are like my wife. She sometimes cuts coupons from the newspaper, takes them to the store, and redeems them. To redeem something simply means to rescue it from going to waste.
That’s exactly what God commands us to do with our time- redeem it- rescue it from going to waste.
This word “redeem” is also a word God uses to describe what Jesus did for us when He died on the cross of Calvary. He did that to redeem us, to rescue us from going to waste. On May 23rd 1981, I was a lost 19 year old college student caught up in the party scene on a state university campus when God in His mercy redeemed me- that night he rescued me from going to waste.
Now that is what he has commanded you and I to do with our time. So if you’ve been redeemed, be sure you redeem the time.
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