"A lady approached an employee in the produce section of a grocery store and asked that he cut her a half a head of lettuce. As he took her lettuce to the back room to cut it, he told a co-worker, “You won’t believe this. This cranky lady wants a half a head of lettuce.” As he turned and realized the lady had followed him and heard his remark, he added, “And this nice lady right here wants the other half.”
This shopper obviously did not understand the time saving benefits of buying in bulk. When you buy in small quantities, you will make more trips to the store which means more time at the check out, on the road, and putting away food. Buying in bulk means you run out less often and you don’t run into crisis situations where you have to get to the store before supper.
Buying in bulk saves money and time. And when you’re saving time, you’re actually redeeming the time.
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"A 47 year old man and his wife were hospitalized in New Jersey recently after a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 a.m. the couple became bored and lit the dynamite planning to toss it out the window and watch it explode. The problem was they forgot to roll the window down.
Boredom gets a lot of people in trouble. It’s also a terrible use of time to be idle due to boredom. But what is the root cause of boredom?
Boredom comes from not being used of God to our fullest potential. It comes from not applying ourselves to achieve God’s best.
The reason so many young people are bored is they haven’t been sufficiently challenged to use their time in meaningful ways of serving God. Rather, they have been taught to see how much fun they can have while they’re young. Fun has its place, but fun alone can’t give a sense of life purpose sufficient to overcome boredom or to redeem the time.
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"When it comes to the way we use our time and energy, there are basically three categories of people. There are energy-takers, energy-givers and energy-wasters.
Energy-takers are those people who draw on the resources of others. They want other people to adapt their schedules to meet their needs. They approach each new situation with greed and selfishness looking to see what they can take away from it.
Energy-wasters are like the lukewarm Laodicean church of Revelation. Their schedules may reflect a busy life, but not a life on fire for God and really sold out to being used of him. They have energy, but they don’t use it for its highest purpose of getting souls ready for eternity.
Then there are the energy-givers. They are those rare individuals whose first thought when meeting a new acquaintance is “How can I be used of God in this person’s life?”
Energy-takers, energy-givers, and energy-wasters -Which of those three will you be today? It’s only the energy-givers that redeem the time.
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"When you get to the end of your life, what do you want to look back on and see that you accomplished for God?
That’s an important and thought provoking question. Because sooner or later, each of us will arrive at the end of life. Most Christians would say that they want to do something significant for the Lord with their life. The problem is they aren’t ready to get started today. There are too many other urgent things that have to be done today. There are too many diversions going on right now to really get focused on serving God today.
But, when you get to the end of your life, you may wish you had started today. Your life is quickly passing by. If you delay much longer you will be at the end of life. So remember the question, “When you get to the end of your life, what do you want to look back on and see that you accomplished for God?” It will help you redeem the time.
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