My "Extra" Time

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”  My times are in your hands…

                                                                      Psalm 31:14a

Finding extra hours in a day is like finding lost treasure.  I tried unsuccessfully to be a good steward of my allotted 24 hours a day, and eventually settled into survival mode.  Figured I’d eventually have time to spare in the nursing home.

Then, with encouragement from a friend, I made a bold lifestyle change and discovered many extra hours in my day!  Can’t wait to tell you where I found them.  You won’t like it, you won’t believe it, or you won’t waste another second before trying it yourself.   

I stopped watching TV.  Can you imagine life without the noise and violence and vicarious murder and mayhem?  No cursing of God’s name or, what a coworker calls “gratuitous soft porn.”  This is where most folks say righteously, “I don’t watch much TV.”

Do you twitter, chat, and scribble on Facebook walls?  Answer emails, browse the internet, and text message?  Scrapbook, wood-work…  You get the picture.  My personal weaknesses are playing Words With Friends on my iPad, and escaping inside the pages of a good mystery novel.  

These activities aren’t bad in themselves, my friend, but left untamed they are bad for us.  The constant stimulation affects our emotions, clutters our brains, wastes our time and steals our focus.  In a word, they are distractions.

I love Webster’s definition of distraction:   “Something that distracts, especially an amusement; a diversion. Mental or emotional confusion or disturbance.”    

We don’t need more time, we have plenty.  When we spend it on important matters first – family relationships, workaday responsibilities, spiritual, mental and physical growth – we have time left over for the fun activities I mentioned above!  

But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you!  He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12).

The fight is over, the devil lost, and he’s hopping mad about it.  He wants to take down as many of God’s people as he can.  He prefers we lose ourselves in worldly distractions so we won’t have time for heavenly ones.

Father in Heaven, the devil doesn’t like it when we use wisely the time you’ve given us. Protect us from the idolatry of worldly distractions.  Through Christ our Savior, Amen

Sandra Milholland

Abilene, Texas