00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 618 of the inspired stewardship podcast. Hey, I'm Matt ham, author of redefined rich and I challenge you to live richly by listening to the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader. That's what I mean by a spiritual view and approach to time. It's recognizing you and your relationship to both others, to God and your relationship to yourself and how they affect what you do,
00:00:38 what you say, and how you spend your time. And the truth is, that's the hard work. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast will learn to invest in yourself,
00:01:04 invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time, I talk with you about why recognizing your relationship with time can be a spiritual exercise, how to use your time in a godly way. And what it means to really be spiritual in your approach to time. As we talk about stewarding your time,
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00:02:01 just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon The truth is that we all have our own relationship with time. You know, time is a finite resource. It is something where we're all given the same 24 hours in a day, the same 168 hours in a week and once our time is gone, we, we can't get it back there. There's, there are ways to get back lost money.
00:02:32 There's ways to get back loss, other things, but time truly is a resource that once you've wasted it, once it's gone, once it's spent, it's gone forever. You know James chapter four verse 14 and says why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow? What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes and this idea,
00:03:00 this spiritual recognition that you only are given a certain amount of time on this earth and what you do with that time, that's what you can determine. That's what you have some input in. You get to make decisions about how you spend your time and what impact you make with the time that you have. Do you get to make choices about what you spend your time on and don't.
00:03:28 And the truth is that you can spend your time in a lot of different ways and you can look up after you've done it with regret, regret with, with fear, with with anger, with decisions about ha. I didn't even get enough rest. I didn't get enough sleep. I didn't get anything done that I wanted to get done. I've wasted my entire day are you can look up after you've spent your time in the day and say,
00:03:56 I have done well. I have spent my time in alignment with what I am called to do. I have spent my alignment and helping others. I spent my time growing myself, helping others and impacting the world in some way. You can also look up and say, I have spent today in rest. You know, we're coming out of what for many people is a holiday weekend.
00:04:23 And sometimes after you spend the day with your family or you spend your day resting and barbecuing or doing whatever it is that you do, you then feel guilty because you didn't work. And then when you're working, you feel guilty because you aren't spending time with your family. It's easy to constantly stress and strain about how you are spending your time and recognizing that you have a relationship with time and you have beliefs about it and the way you interact with it is determined by those beliefs is a spiritual exercise.
00:04:59 It's an exercise about looking at yourself. And the truth is you can manage your time in a godly way. You can put God first in your life. You can seek out wisdom about how you spend your time. You know, there are many passages in the Bible about seeking wisdom, seeking tools, finding the ways to just focus on the things that you need to focus on.
00:05:29 Cause the truth is if all you depend upon is yourself and your own self discipline, you'll never really get as far as if you plug in the right tools and the right accountability. If you plug in the belief and the focus on God first, that helps. Setting goals becomes a different exercise when you recognize the fact that you have to respond to how you're wired and how you've been made as well.
00:06:00 When you recognize the gravity of the limited amount of time you have and the fact that you are called to do a mission here, you have a job, you have something that you're being called to do. You have things that you are meant to be doing and if you don't spend your time doing those things, then that's the real tragedy. But to figure out what your calling is,
00:06:26 to figure out how to actually do this. The actual implementation of the hard work of using your time and these sort of good ways. That's the hard part. That's the spiritual part. That's the part that requires you looking inside yourself, making hard choices, looking inside yourself and being able to say no to certain things. Surrounding yourself with wise counsel so that you can begin to plug in the tools and the techniques that you need to do.
00:07:00 You know, when I talk about spirituality and time, immediately people think about things like prayer and meditation and don't get me wrong, these sorts of spiritual exercises, spiritual disciplines of you know, reading scripture, prayer time, meditation, time, taking time for yourself, putting in time for sleep and and effort. These things are important. They are vital to your longterm health and wellbeing and success,
00:07:28 but that's not the only thing I'm talking about. I'm also talking about being able to look deeply inside yourself and tell yourself the truth about how you view time. Are you constantly saying things like, I never have enough time. Are you constantly saying things like, I run from one thing to the next thing and just never know what's coming next. If you are,
00:07:54 then you need to plug yourself in to something that allows you to begin to view your time differently because the actual act of how you view your time affects how you use it. That's what I mean by a spiritual view and approach to time. It's recognizing you and your relationship to both others, to God and your relationship to yourself and how they affect what you do,
00:08:23 what you say and how you spend your time. And the truth is that's the hard work. You know, you can read a book, you can pick up a, uh, a blog and read about how to use certain tools and techniques, but the tools and techniques aren't what makes the change. What makes the change in your life is you, you doing the hard work,
00:08:47 you doing the work that needs to be done. But that's the hard part. That's the challenge. You know, the truth is, if it was as easy as just reading a book, we'd all spend our time, well, we'd all spend our money well, we'd never have any regrets and everyone would be doing exactly what they're called to do, but that's not the world we live in.
00:09:11 And the truth is it's because most of us don't do the hard work of examining ourselves and our own internal relationship with time. If you need some help with that, I'm always willing to sit down and spend 30 minutes helping you focus in on what's going on in your own mindset and belief around time. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:09:43 As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting four four two two two time tips,
00:10:15 and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.