The Time that Got Away

A little click, a little swipe, a little scrolling and skimming down your Instagram feed,

and lost hours will stalk you like the undead; spent minutes like ghosts. (From Proverbs6:10-11)

Where does the time go? Is there some place where hours and days and weeks pile up to exchange for some other value, or do they just disappear like raindrops on a hot pavement? Do I make time, or does time make me? Both, really: I dispose the hours but at the same time they are units to be filled in the blocks that build personality and character. The question is, filled with what?

For the last five years I’ve used a Passion Planner^TM to map the short- and long-ranges ahead of me. Passion Planner is big on motivation and goal-setting, with space for evaluating each month, strategizing for the year and setting markers for where you want to be in January 2021. Every month includes two pages for reflection on what you learned, what you’re grateful for, etc. (these pages get nothing from me). Each week has a “Focus,” a place to list positive things that happened, an inspirational quote, to-do lists for Personal and Work goals, and a “Space of Infinite Possibility”—a blank span of white, index-card size, for whatever you want. Infinite possibility! Usually blank, in my planner, because I’m just trying to get through the week. The columns marking off days and hours and half-hours get filled up. I also use the back pages, of which there are many, for lists, budgets, and ongoing projects.

So the planner is like a back-up hard drive for details I need to keep track of. And passing minutes are like software, always running, always claiming my attention, always falling into patterns. Patterns become habits that can so easily sink into vast swathes of “wasted” time—hours that can’t be recalled or remembered but somehow, like the daily calories I consume, build my character for better or worse.

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil

(Eph. 5:14-16).

Look carefully. What did I purchase with spent minutes? How can I spend them more wisely this week, or next hour? Maybe the Passion Planner, for all its motivational claptrap, is right to prompt me to spend some time in reflection each month, “looking carefully” over the time recently traveled, considering where I went and how I got there. Isn’t that part of wisdom? Most of us, I suspect, are sitting on a mountain of wasted time. The good news is we all have unused time ahead, though no one can say how much. The days are evil, but if Christ is shining, there’s enough light in each hour make good use.