Time Audit

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Ephesians 5:15–17 (KJV) See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

What it is speaking to me:

"Redeeming the time." I like that phrase a lot more than "managing your time," because redeeming sounds like you're getting something back. Rescuing it from where it got lost.

That's about right, isn't it? Because most of us aren't losing our time to anything dramatic. We're not squandering it on some big, obvious sin. We're losing it in sixty-second increments, one phone check at a time, until an hour's gone and we can't even say at the end of it what we watched.

Paul isn't writing to lazy people here. He's writing to a church in a city, full of busy, working, responsible people, and he still feels the need to say "wake up, the days are evil, don't waste this." Wasted time isn't just a productivity problem...it can be a spiritual one. Every hour I hand over to mindless scrolling is an hour lost. It's not neutral, it's a form of loss.

I think that's why he pairs "redeeming the time" right next to "understanding what the will of the Lord is." Those two things aren't separate ideas. They're the same idea. You can't really do the second one if you're always letting the first one slip through your fingers.

What is it saying to you?

Where does your time actually go on a normal day, not where you'd like it to go, but where it really goes?What's one activity that eats up minutes (or hours) without giving you anything back?If you got that time back, what would you actually do with it?

What are we going to do about it?

Identify one time-wasting activity you'll replace with a focused, productive activity today. Maybe it's swapping fifteen minutes of scrolling for fifteen minutes in the Word, or trading a mindless show for a real conversation with someone you love. Small trade, but it's redeeming the time instead of losing it.