Matt 22:38 - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind." Meditate on the implications of that. It's huge.

Now think of how that relates to how your resources are spent, specifically time. How many times have you heard people say, or have said yourself, "I'd like to pray more, but don't have time." "I'd like to read the Word more, but don't have time." "We need people to work in our church, but everyone's schedule is so full."

Now think about schedules. There's work, and school, and TV, and dates, and movies, and videos, and sports. And if you're not involved in one of these, you're doing things to accomodate your kid's participation in these. Work and entertainment, entertainment and work. This is western society. Even you students, why are you in school? To get a good job of course. So count school as work related.

Now I'm involved in work and entertainment myself. But are these the focus of your life? Don't answer too quickly. Have you turned down ministry because you don't have time? If your pastor asked everyone to read the Book of Matthew by next Sunday, could you pull it off? It would take about 20 minutes a day. Saying that where your heat and treasure will be in the same place is another way of saying that you'll make time for what you value.

So what do we do? We do God's will. Before taking classes you ask God if you should. Before signing Junior up for soccer you ask the Lord. Before the girl gets piano lessons we ask God. And if work keeps us from the Lord's purposes we look for a change in schedule or job if necessary. It's that important.

I'm finding that as a person grows in the Lord God will make progressively greater demands on a person's time, and that may or may not include ministry work. It's more likely to actually be time in prayer, meditation, and study. In fact in my case it led to a cutback in ministry work. But praise God, He made it possible through His guidance on my schedule. First, He told me to forget about night classes...and my standard of living improved. Then He had me rearrange my work schedule...and I found myself being more productive time AND enjoying more family and devotional time. The marriage is prospering, the kids are turning out well, church gets better every week, my ministries are bearing fruit, and and I'm growing in the Lord. It comes from ordering life around the Greatest Commandment, listening and obeying. Easy! To God be all glory.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2002