Time Management: Using Eternity As My Filter

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Dishes. Laundry. Hospitality. Caring for children. Loving your husband. Bargain shopping. Creating beautiful things. Chatting with a discouraged friend. Reading. Facebooking. Chilling. Earning a little extra income from a home business.

What's on your to-do list?

What's on your actually did list?

What should be on each of those lists?

As homemakers there are so many things we can spend our time doing. Some of them are good things. Some of them are clearly wasteful things. (Ahem, I have my fair share of those.) And some of them are sort of in the middle.

God has used a beautiful quote to teach me something valuable about time management:

"Only one life, twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last."

Maybe you've heard it--or seen it on an old plaque hanging in your grandmother's kitchen. It's been around for a while. And it is so true. It rings through my mind almost on a daily basis. Does this particular task really matter for eternity?

I want my life to count. I want to build something made of gold and precious jewels--not stubble. (I Corinthians 3:10-15) But so often, I'm pouring seconds, minutes, hours down the drain of time.

Here are a few concepts that the Lord has been graciously teaching me about thinking eternally:

1. Little things can have eternal value.
It might be easy to argue that doing dishes, washing laundry, or creating a beautiful home are things that don't really have eternal value. I disagree. I think that when we do the small tasks that can come with home management with the right attitude, we are doing something eternally significant. First of all, by serving our families in these ways, we ourselves can be sanctified! We learn more about Christ's character as we seek to be servants ourselves. Secondly, we teach our children about God's character. Faithfulness, diligence, beauty. Those are all pieces of who God is. We also display His character not only to our families, but to those who are welcomed to our home when we have a place to offer that is warm, inviting, and peaceful. Little things done in faithfulness can build eternal values in the hearts of people.

2. People always trump everything else in the eternal economy.
Although I do build eternal things when I make my home a well-ordered and beautiful place, I build something even more significant when I focus specifically on the people in my family and those God gives me to minister to. Spending time with my children will always be more important than creating a beautiful wall-hanging for the living room. Sometimes, even the basics need to be set aside to attend to the hearts of people. Illness, sadness, or perhaps the need for celebration with a family member can sometimes be the reason we need to set aside even the most basic of homemaking tasks for a time. I'm not saying this should be used as an excuse for living in perpetual chaos. "Well, we were celebrating!" or "He's had a cold and that's why there haven't been clean socks for two months." Um, no. Chaos that continues almost indefinitely probably means a reevaluation of priorities is in order.

3. There are lots of good things we can do, but only some are best.
There might be something that seems eternally significant. Taking a meal to a family who just had a baby. Teaching a Bible study class. Chatting with a friend who's discouraged. In the quote I mentioned above it said, "Only what's done for Christ will last". You know what? You might think you're doing something for the Lord, but did He actually ask you to do that particular thing? Chances are (hooo boy, I can hear God talking to me right now!) There are things you're doing that are good things, but God never asked you to do them. We need to really ask God--what's on your to-do list for me?

4. There are some things we clearly need to trash--they don't even pretend to have eternal value.
I can waste a lot of time online. I often do waste a lot of time online. Can I get a witness? We probably all have things in our lives that we can immediately recognize as unprofitable time wasters. In short, there is no place for things that suck away time from our homes, families, and relationship with Christ. Period. (There He goes again, talking to me.)

Am I annoying you? Getting on your case? I'm tellin' ya--He got on mine first. And I've still got a looonnng way to go before I can say with confidence that I've learned this particular lesson! But when I do implement it, it works for me.