I Entertain Myself at the Expense of God

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

I Entertain Myself at the Expense of God
Guest post by tintin903

Despite recognizing the importance of time, I never reflect on how I spend it. After reading some interesting statistics posted by Xanga friend, which summarizes a study on how people spend their time in different ways, here’s how I would summarize how I spend my time.This is under the assumption that I will live for 60 years after becoming a Christian:
- I will have spent 20 years sleeping
- I will have spent 16.5 years working
- I will have spent 7 years entertaining myself with TV, movies, etc.
- I will have spent 5.5 years eating
- I will have spent 5 years commuting
- I will have spent 2 years attending church, worshiping God, praying, and doing devotions.
- I will have spent 2 years doing housework
- I will have spent 2 years doing other things, such as vacation, hanging out with family and friends, etc.
The result surprises me at first, but when I thought about it, it actually make some sense. With a 24-hour day, most of us do spend 8 hours sleeping and 8 hours working a full-time job, plus the commute time to work. That’s more than two-third of our lives. And for most of us, those are not something we can change, or even if we sacrifice another hour of sleep daily or move next to the place where we work, that will only save one to two years of our lives, which is not much.
However, what is remaining (less than one-third) of my life, I’m in control. It did surprised me that out of what is remaining, entertaining myself came to the top of the time spent list, and feeding myself comes next. Wow, I treat myself very well, but I’m leaving behind God and family and friends. This really makes me think about how I can better utilize my time and make it more valuable.
With 7 years out of 60, it translates to about 2.5 hours per day spent on entertainment. Perhaps I can cut an hour of that and spend on reading the bible, memorizing scriptures, worshiping God, volunteering to help out the community.With 5.5 years out 60, it translates to about 2.25 hours per day spent on breakfast/lunch/dinner. I don’t think I need to cut the time for my meals, but perhaps I can eat with people and share God with them, or simply better utilize my meal times.
With 5 years out of 60, it translates to about 2 hours per day spent on commuting, mostly on public transportations to work. Unless I move, this isn’t time that I can reduce in spending. But I can preach the Gospel to people on the buses or simply to show/share God’s love.
With 2 years out of 60, it translates to less than 1 hour per day on housework and the same for other things that I do. There isn’t much that I can change with the time spent in these areas, because I don’t live by myself, so I do have to share my part of the housework to keep myself and things in the house neat and clean. As for other things, I wish I have more time for them, especially family and friends. They are important to me, but based on my time reflection, I seemed to neglect them. Maybe when I’m with them, I just need to be more caring, loving, and showing respect.
So that’s still not much change! Majority of my time is still spent in bed and at work. I normally sleep only 4-5 hours a day. I don’t sleep well, and I’m convinced that I don’t need the normal 8-hour sleep like most people do. Except since my family are all very punctual in bed time and extremely sensitive to light and noise, I can’t really do any activity. But while I lay in bed, I can pray. I can pray for as long as I’m unable to sleep. That’s at least 3 hours a day.
And at work, there’s more I can do, too. My company has 30,000 employees. Of course I don’t know them all, but I can start with my department. There are 43 employees. 17 of which are within my reach. Out of the 17, only one other woman calls herself Christian, who I find out doesn’t read the Bible nor attends church, and the other 19 are all non-Christians. It’s my opportunity to share Jesus Christ at work and have a purpose at my workplace.
How wonderful God is to open up my eyes this way, simply through someone’s post on how people spend their time. I hope whoever sees this post and is a Christian will pray for me, that God will use me to make a difference at my workplace and to fully use the limited time I have in my life to love people the way that Jesus showed His love with me.
Have you ever felt convicted about how you spend your time?